


Daughters of Destiny

by Star Charter (Bibliograph)



Series: Lucky Child [3]
Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale, 幽☆遊☆白書 | YuYu Hakusho: Ghost Files
Genre: A bit AU, Crossover, Gen, OC!Kagome, Original Character(s), SI!Keiko, not a standalone, side fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2018-11-12 14:26:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 27,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11163747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bibliograph/pseuds/Star%20Charter
Summary: When Kagome discovers she can travel through the Bone-Eater's Well five years before canon dictates, Not-Quite-Keiko finds herself taking an unexpected trip to the Feudal Era—and not for a relaxing vacation. Babysitting isn't really her thing, but if Keiko doesn't keep Kagome out of trouble, who will? And Kagome seems quite determined to get them into trouble...*NEW CHAPTER 1 ADDED****This is a side-story/companion fic for my Yu Yu Hakusho story, "Lucky Child." This will make very little sense unless you have read "Lucky Child."***





	1. Calling My Name

**Author's Note:**

> This idea grabbed me and would NOT let go.
> 
> This is a side-story (not to be considered canon) for Lucky Child. If you haven't read Lucky Child, TURN BACK NOW. This will make very little sense without the context of that story. But just in case you aren't deterred, know this: both Keiko and Kagome are OCs (or an SI, in Keiko's case) reincarnated in the bodies of canon characters. They will NOT act like canon Keiko and Kagome…not completely, anyway. Enjoy!
> 
> Title subject to change.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Not-Quite-Kagome heeds the call of destiny. Probably?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The problem with writing serially is that sometimes you get halfway through a story and realize it needs a prologue to better make sense of certain things down the road. This is that belated prologue. Whoops! The events above have always been in my head, and at first I didn't think I needed to share them…buuuut I changed my mind. Thanks for abiding my retroactive additions. I'm posting this a week after I posted chapter 5, for those just joining us. Hope you like the new prologue!

In the depths of my dreams, someone called my name—but they didn't call me Kagome.

The voice spoke a name for myself I had forgotten, and the name I longed the most to remember. The name's tenor—less the sound of it, more the feeling of memory and ownership and _home_ —floated over the shadows of sleep like a summer wind, curling into the fog of my dreams until the darkness sang with the sound of my misplaced name.

All of which was really fucking _weird_ , I gotta say.

Sitting up in the darkness with a grunt, I rubbed at my nest of bedhead and yawned. A lot of the time I didn't dream at all, just fell into bed and snored like a log (Jii-chan always teased me for it, that old fart). And tonight I hadn't really dreamed, either, aside from that…that _echo_ through the dark. That meaning-laden murmur I barely heard yet couldn't quite bring myself to ignore.

Like I said: fucking _weird_.

Low voices hummed beyond my bedroom door, hearable with my ears instead of my head and heart this time. I slid from my futon and padded to the door. Pressing my ear against it didn't reveal much: just Jii-chan and Mom talking, up late like usual in the living room.

"…offered to buy it, but I put my foot down," Jii-chan was saying.

"But at that price…" Mom said.

"Fooey! Not at _any_ price. Not when we have that crackerjack new lawyer working the case for free—"

Ah. Money talk. The kind of talk they only ever had after I went to bed, since I was just ten (or so they thought) and clearly shouldn't be exposed to such Serious Adult Matters. What a load. Keiko said her parents did the same thing to her when she was ten, though, so it must be normal…I _guess_. Doesn't make it any less infuriating to be treated like a little kid when you're a formerly 30-year-old married woman, and—

Deep breaths, girl.

Anyway.

I knew enough about my family's hidden money matters to know that the Higurashi temple—the place I called home in my accidental second life—lay at the heart of Tokyo. We were always getting offers from corporations to buy the land (of which there was a lot, lemme tell ya, especially for the middle of Tokyo) as a result. But the land was long since paid off, so we didn't have to worry too much about money. My home was a historical site with government funding, even if it was family-owned, so…

"Still," Mom said, voice oddly tight. "It's worth hearing the figure, isn't it? Especially since…"

They lapsed into silence. My baby brother, Sota, gurgled somewhere in the living room. Probably on Mom's lap, if I had to guess. He was just two years old to my ten years old and spent most of his time glued to our mother. So had I at his age—me and my sister both.

My sister.

My sister, whose name I _also_ didn't remember.

Fucking _ugh_ , right?

I sighed, leaning my forehead against the cool panel of the door. I tried not to think of _Her_ much anymore. Eeyore liked to wallow in the past and talk about all her old friends and stuff (that drama queen), but thinking of Her just made me sad—but not because I couldn't remember her or whatever. Nope. My memory was _perfect_ aside from the whole name thing. I remembered her smirk, her pointed chin, the way she laughed like a hyena, the tilt of her jaw and the way she'd always pushed and prodded at our parents, breaking the rules and toeing the line and dragging me right along with her—but it's not like I'd ever see her face again. And thinking of her deep skin and straight, white teeth only reminded me that I'd never see _my_ face again either, what with us being identical and all.

Thinking of Her reminded me of what I'd lost, more than thinking of my parents did, and somehow even more than thinking of my left-behind husband did…and that oughtta tell ya how close She and I were.

Pathetic, really, how emo I get over Her.

To be honest, the more I thought of Her, the harder it become to pay attention to little Sota, let alone want to become a sister to him. How could I be a sister to someone else when I'd left a sibling behind in my old life—and a _twin_ , at that? We'd been as close as any cliché twins you can think of, always tangled up in each other's lives and dramas, switching places and dressing alike and pulling all the Classic Twin Pranks™ you can think of. Being a twin, I knew how to handle.

But a big sister?

How did one be a big sister to a little brother, anyway?

Keiko could probably figure it out, I thought. She was annoyingly smart like that, plus she'd lucked out and had been born an only child in both her lives. She could probably learn to be a sibling if she had to, though. Heck, she practically already had. Keiko had Yusuke in this life, and he was practically more of a brother to her than Sota was to me. Eeyore took to almost-having-a-sibling like a fish takes to water.

But whatever. It's not like Sota was old enough to see the distance between me and him, anyway. Maybe in a few years, sure, but by then I'd have it all figured out. And if I didn't, I'd just go to Keiko for advice. Good ol' Eeyore would help me out, that's for sure.

So in the end, it was best not to think of Her.

Yeah.

Best not to dwell on Her at all.

Just forget your sister, Tigger. You're better off like that.

I went to sleep fighting Her memory, until the darkness claimed me once again.

* * *

When my true name floated through my dreaming again, I was ready for it.

Not _ready_ -ready, of course. It's not like I expected to hear my name again. I'm good, but I'm not _that_ good. It's just that I hadn't quite fallen totally asleep when the sound, the _feeling_ _of my name_ repeated. When I heard the call I sat up at once, head turning on instinct toward the source.

My window.

Moonlight streamed through the open curtains, quicksilver against a dark sky. The futon whumped onto the floor as I stood, but I didn't bother putting it back atop the mattress. I rested my hands on the sill and peered past my reflection, with its large eyes and ratty hair, into the night beyond.

Without really knowing how, I knew where my name had come from…and I knew with even greater certainty I had to see its origin for myself.

My mantra for the night was definitely, "Fucking _weird_."

Jii-chan had fallen asleep in the living room, slumped over the _kotatsu_ (sans blanket and heater in the summer night's swelter) and the paperwork scattered across its top. I took a minute to put a blanket over him before tiptoeing out of the house, outdoor shoes slipped precariously over my toes but not quite pulled up at the heel. Pillow clutched to my chest (because apparently I'd taken that with me for some reason), I tripped and traipsed over the temple's paths, winding deeper and deeper into the heart of the sprawling grounds until a triangular shape appeared against the velvety night sky—a sky stripped of stars thanks to the cold lights of the surrounding city.

The Bone Eater's Well.

My heart leapt near out of my body through my eyeballs at the sight. But it was just a shrine—more like a shack, really—and there was nothing to be scared of.

"Don't be dumb," I scolded as I pushed open the doors. "You've been in here a million times. _Two_ million. And the scariest part about it is the spiders, girlfriend. You're OK."

And that was true—and yet, the shack felt colder than this warm night could explain.

A chill coursed through me, all shivering and creeptastic and gross.

I took a deep breath of stale, musty air and walked to the edge of the well. Ever since I could wander off on my own, ever since I learned to walk in Kagome's body, I'd come here to wonder at the Well. To prod and press at possibility, to see what might happen if Kagome had been aware of the Well's true power and approached its depths early.

Nothing had ever happened, before. All I'd gotten was hay fever and a scolding for my troubles.

Tonight, though, something felt different.

It sounds silly to say that I jumped in on a whim, but that's exactly what I did—and in the process, I learned my hunch wasn't just a hunch, after all.

The air of the Feudal Era, by the way, tastes quite a bit different than the air of 1991 Tokyo…but that's a comparison for another time.

Or another _era_ , as it were.

Get it? Air in the Feudal Era? Era, _air_ -a?

…fine. Be that way. Keiko would've appreciated my pun, though.

Speaking of which…

* * *

I had to wait till after school the next day to call Keiko. As if retaking the goddamn fifth grade wasn't maddening enough as it is, the wait made the day drag like a dog's itchy ass across the carpet. I ran home after school at full tilt, all but kicking down the door to the house so I could dart into the kitchen and the phone that lay within. That precious, precious phone that would summon my best friend and send us careening down the path of destiny, barreling toward wonders unknown and adventures untold and—

Only I probably shouldn't get ahead of myself.

The universe certainly didn't let me.

Two feet inside the door, I damn near slammed off of tall, dark barrier that I _definitely_ hadn't expected to find standing in the middle of the goddamn shoe-room—but before I could fall, two large hands lashed out and caught me by the shoulders. Almost got whiplash, it happened so fast…not that Jii-chan cared for my safety just then.

"Kagome!" Jii-chan warbled. "No running in the house!"

As the hands set me gently on my feet, I found myself staring up at a tall man I didn't recognize—a man who looked quite old in Kagome's young eyes, but one who couldn't be much older than thirty. His dark suit, pressed, and his dark hair, tidy, were offset by his milky skin…and nope, nothing interesting there aside from a vague sense of handsomeness that Kagome's juvenile brain didn't really give a shit about. Coal black eyes looked me up and down, cool and unamused. He had the face of a total killjoy, like a cliché accountant with a yardstick up the ass who spent Saturday nights at home alone with the latest edition of _The_ _New York Times_ for company. Ho hum, _boring_. Jii-chan rushed over and ushered me out of the room before I could take in anything else about the stranger, not that I cared, because what-the-hell-ever, I had bigger fish to call on the phone just then.

"You'll have to excuse my granddaughter," Jii-chan said to the stranger. "She's a bit of a tomboy, but I promise she'll be quiet this afternoon." It wasn't often Jii-chan glared at me, but his look just then promised dire punishments and endless bad luck curses in exchange for disobedience. " _Won't you_ , Kagome? This is our new lawyer, and we need to treat him _nicely_ since he's _helping_ us." One accusatory eye nearly bugged out of his ancient skull. "Hmm, Kagome? Will you be quiet this afternoon?"

"I will, but only if you let me have Keiko over tomorrow night for a sleepover!" I said, digging in my heels as he pushed me down the hall.

Pretty sure he only agreed because he wanted to be rid of me, and because he knew the value of a bribe. "Fine, fine!" Jii-chan groused. "But Kagome, you really must be quiet today as well—hey, _wait a minute_!"

With a cry of glee I ducked under his arm and scampered around his legs, heading back the way I'd come to make a beeline for the kitchen. Mister Lawyer Man watched with one thin brow arched high as I skipped past him to the phone, but I didn't pay attention to the feeling of his appraising eyes (nor Jii-chan's glaring ones) digging holes in my back as I placed my call. Lucky for me, my lucky girl Eeyore answered her phone on the first ring.

"A girl's night, tomorrow?" she said when I babbled my invitation. "Uh, sure. I have a lunch with Kurama that afternoon, but my evening is clear. Let me ask Mom if…" She put the phone against her shoulder and shouted something; her mother's muffled voice replied a moment after. Eeyore picked up the phone again. "She says I can come over for the night. Meet you after my lunch date?"

"Yeah, that's great," I said—and it was. Even if Keiko delayed a little while, at least she was going to come over.

At least she was going to come see this for herself.

_Adventure awaits, my good-good buddies!_

I hung up the phone and pumped a fist into the air. Jii-chan and Lawyer Dude watched—the former wearing an expression of forced humor, the latter as blank as fresh canvas—as I jumped in place, spinning with joy I couldn't be bothered to explain.

"My, my," Jii-chan grumbled as I turned another pirouette. "My Kagome certainly loves this new friend of hers, doesn't she?"

Mister Lawyer Dude answered with nothing but a tight, polite smile. I didn't pay him or Jii-chan any more mind and merely bounced up the stairs to my room. I'd gotten what I wanted, after all; time to go be quiet just as Jii-chan asked and honor my part of the bribe. Maybe read a book or something to take my mind off the horror of waiting. Even so, waiting would be torture, but soon it would be over.

Soon our adventure—mine and Keiko's both—would begin.

It might sound cliché, but I had a feeling destiny was calling us—and calling me, specifically, by the sound of my long forgotten name.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kagome mentioned she was a twin the first time she appeared in Lucky Child. Figured I should expand on Kagome's relationship with her past in a way similar to my exploration of NQK's. Also NQKagome is SO COLLOQUIAL and chattery; she's fun to write, but it's definitely different from NQKeiko.
> 
> Will skim through the rest of the fic and make sure this fits with established chapters, but tomorrow, because I'm going to go collapse now. I wrote nearly 4,000 words of my NaNo project today, then edited 8,000 words of dry business articles for my Real Adult Job, and am just finishing this 2,500 word chapter at midnight. TIME FOR BED. Thanks to all who read chapter 5/read since my last update!


	2. Chapter 2

"Don't freak out, OK?"

Kagome looked at me with guileless brown eyes, Bambi-like in their liquid charm…but I was not to be deceived. I scowled and crossed my arms over my chest.

"You know that's the absolute worst thing you can say to someone with anxiety, right?" I said. "And the least suspicious thing you can say, too boot."

She blinked. "Suspicious? Me?"

"Yes, you. You are clearly planning something, and I don't like it." I pinned her with a look of concrete demand. "Spill, chiquita. What the hell are we doing in here, anyway?"

Kagome whistled, rocking back and forth on her heels like a little kid. At ten years old she cut a completely unimpressive figure, with height diminutive, limbs gangly, and face as adorable as a kitten's. Totally out of place inside the shed covering the Bone Eater's Well. Kagome belonged in sunshine, not stuck in here with cobwebs and dust. Why she'd called me that afternoon and demanded I come over for a weekend sleepover I still wasn't sure, but as soon as I'd arrived at the temple she'd dragged me in here. This did not bode well.

…oh. A pun. Nice job, Not-Quite-Keiko!

Kagome stared at me for a few moments, lips rolling together as she considered her words. Then she smiled and waved a hand over the edge of the railing, down into the pit of the Well itself.

"No sense beating around the bush, I guess," she said. "So here's the truth, plain and simple: I went through the Well yesterday!"

Took a minute for my brain to recover from the intense shock that statement summoned. My jaw dropped, my eyes bugged, my palms went slippery with nervous sweat as my heart stuttered like a bad engine—and then I put my face in my hands and groaned.

"O _h my god, Tigger_ ," I said.

She sounded like a kicked puppy when she said, "Aww, phooey, Eeyore. I knew you'd react like this."

"Of _course_ I'd react like this," I said, lifting my head to glare at her. "You travelled to the past before your canon started, alone, as a defenseless ten year old!" She pouted, toe kicking forlornly at the floor. "Tigger, what the hell were you thinking? That was an incredibly dangerous decision! Why did you do it? Also, how?" I paused a second, ire fading into curiosity. "Actually, start with the 'how.'"

"Oh, that part was easy-peasy," she said with the nonchalance of smalltalk. "I just jumped in."

"Just jumped—" My jaw dropped again. "You could have _broken_ your _leg_!"

"But I _didn't_!" she whined. "And I threw a pillow down first just in case the Well didn't work!"

"…a pillow. Really. A single pillow to break a ten-foot fall."

"…maybe I should've thrown down more," she conceded, but then she shook her head like a wet dog. "But that's not the point! I made it through! _That's_ the point! I made it through to the past and I walked around a bit and then I came back, safe and sound, and now I think we should take a trip together!"

Once again, my mind didn't immediately catch up. It couldn't wrap itself around the concept of doing something so utterly, completely _reckless_. I gaped at Kagome for a solid minute before realizing what she meant—what she meant, and why she must have called me here for a weekend-long sleepover.

"You—you want us to go to the past?" I said. "Together?"

"Well, I don't want to go _alone_ ," she said, 'duh' written all over her petite face. "I only went for five minutes last time."

"Five minutes?" I repeated, because I wasn't capable of much else.

"Yeah. Five minutes." She tossed her hair with a triumphant smile. "I'm not _stupid_. I went through and only walked a few meters away, to see if I could see anything. I spotted the god-tree where Inuyasha got shot with Kikyo's arrow, just the top of it above the rest of the trees, and then I turned back. But I want to see the tree up close!"

I massaged my temples with my fingers and somehow resisted the urge to smack Kagome upside the head. "Up close, you say?"

"Yeah. And I figured if it took a long time, we could stay the night." She said spoke as if she hadn't just proposed something utterly stupid, insane, and altogether foolhardy. "I already packed a bag with survival gear and tents and food and stuff. And you brought over your sleepover clothes, so we're prepared!"

Gleeful and hopeful and proud, from under a floorboard she produced a backpack, heavy enough that she had to lift it with both of her tiny, child-sized hands. She was closer to 40 years old in mind, but her adolescent shell was absolutely that: adolescent. Helpless, childlike, and about as useful in a fight as a Rock-'Em-Sock-'Em Robot. I would know. We'd been taking aikido lessons together for months. While she could dodge and evade with aptitude, her small size kept her from being able to hit with any noteworthy force. Certainly not force noteworthy enough to stand against a demon.

And as we both knew, the Feudal Era was rife with them.

"We might be prepared in terms of supplies, but we are completely unprepared in every single other way that counts," I said. I smacked an open palm against my chest. "We're _children_. Or at least we're the size of children. If we ran into a demon, any demon at all, we could get killed or—"

Kagome's face fell as I explained all the specific, gruesome ways this could go wrong: demons could eat us, villagers could mistake us for witches and burn us alive, we could fall down a mountain and bash our heads in. Hell, we could get food poisoning and shit ourselves to death, or die from drinking unfiltered water and vomit up our own guts. Kagome listened with a sad expression and hefted the backpack higher on her shoulder. For a moment I hoped she was taking my words to heart, and that she'd give up this crazy scheme of hers.

The hope passed fast.

As I spoke, her expression changed from sad to determined. She met my eyes and smiled, though with apology I didn't quite understand. I stopped talking and stared at her with unconcealed alarm.

"Tigger?" I said.

"Sorry, Eeyore," Kagome said. "You make great points, but I've made up my mind." One eye closed in a mischievous wink. "See you on the other side!"

I went cold. Once again, shock kept me from moving. Only when she took a step backward did I find the will to lunge at her.

"Tigger, no!" I screeched.

But my protest didn't stop her, and my hands scrambled for her too late. With a sunny, beaming smile, Not-Quite-Kagome took two steps back and hopped over the railing—flying both feet first into the depths of the Bone Eater's Well, and into the arms of the Feudal Era.

I only had to ponder what to do for a moment.

Keiko's irritatingly responsible nature left me little choice but to follow Kagome down the demonic rabbit hole.


	3. The God Tree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NQKeiko and NQKagome take in the sights of the Fuedal Era. NQKagome asks the big questions.

Keiko didn't appear at the bottom of the Well right away, but I had faith she wouldn't leave me in the lurch all alone. I sat down crisscross applesauce—the way I'd made my kindergarteners sit in my past life—and waited for my friend amidst scattered bones and gnarled cobwebs.

I waited.

And waited.

_And waited, dammit._

Keiko took her sweet fuckin' time, that's for sure.

When she finally appeared next to me in a disheveled heap, I wondered if bringing her along had been such a good idea. That glare of hers had _teeth_.

"Hi!" I said.

Keiko glared some more. "I am angry with you, and I suggest you do as I say from here on out, or so help me—"

"Oh, pshaw!" I flapped my hand in her scowling face. "Admit it. You wanted to come along. You're too much of a scientist to leave a stone unturned. You were curious about—wait, what the hell are you _wearing_?"

She glowered. "Well, we can't go traipsing about the Feudal Era in blue jeans, can we? Not if we expect to maintain a low profile." From under her harm she pulled a bundle of cloth. "Here. Put this on."

Keiko wore a simple robe made of off-white cloth, belted at the waist, and flat wooden sandals—traditional clothing my Jii-chan made me and Mom wear whenever we helped around the Shrine. Keiko wore Mom's robe and had brought mine along, too. Leave it to Miss Smarty-Pants to think about dressing for the period. I pulled my shirt over my head with a gleeful hoot. Keiko called me an exhibitionist pervert, but I ignored her and got dressed. I mean, we were at the bottom of a well and we were both girls (even if Keiko was a little gay). What was the harm?

"What did Jii-chan say when you asked to use these?" I said as I kicked out of my pants.

Keiko shrugged. "Not much. Told him we wanted to get into character for that book we're supposedly writing. He thought it was a good idea."

"He's glad we're showing interest in old stuff, probably," I said. "That's my Jii-chan!"

Keiko helped me tie my belt, then clambered up and over the side of the Well and helped me climb out, too. She took deep breaths once the sun hit our faces, eyes closing while she stared up at the sky. I watched with a grin as she turned in a slow circle to observe the trees, bushes, and boulders scattered about the edges of the Well's clearing, looking at each one like something important might be hiding under it.

Gosh, Keiko was funny. I'd jumped in the air and screamed and hollered with triumph when I came through the Well the first time, but here she was trying to memorize the friggin' place.

I let her have her fun (if you can call it that) for a minute before pointing over her shoulder. "See that big treetop? It's the God Tree."

She turned and squinted toward the sky. Over the edge of the treeline rose a huge puffy cloud of leaves, taller than anything else for miles. The _Goshinboku_ —the God Tree. Hard to miss, especially when you had eagle eyes like Keiko.

"OK. So it's to the north," Keiko muttered. She gestured toward it and said, "Well, Tigger. This is your story. Wanna lead the way?"

"Yup!" I darted past her and plunged into the forest. "Follow me!"

Even if the God Tree hadn't been visible from our spot by the Well, I could've found it. I knew where it stood in relation to the Well. Had been looking at them both my whole (second) life, after all. Keiko grumbled and cursed as we picked our way through the woods, wooden sandals catching on rocks and roots, but the trip over to the Tree didn't take too long. I reflexively giggled every time I saw its crown above the forest—because this felt _exciting_! Getting to see Inuyasha while he slept, getting to see a preview of the world I'd soon be spending a lot of time in…that was _awesome_. Keiko said this would be dangerous, but Keiko worried too much. We'd be careful, and it'd be fine. She'd see!

We were _together_ , after all. There wasn't nothin' in this world we couldn't handle if we put our heads together, and that's a fact.

We made it to the Tree is short order, occasional detours around thick brush and random boulders only slowing us a little. Soon the trees thinned, giving way to a sunny clearing. I called back at Eeyore when I saw the trunk of the God Tree peeking between the foliage, but before I could run headlong into it, Keiko grabbed my shoulder. Leaves stuck in her hair like she'd gone to a rave with forest nymphs.

"You probably shouldn't go right up to Inuyasha if he's there," she said. "Didn't he wake up when Kagome touched him in the anime?"

I wanted to argue—because I wanted to touch his ears. Some parts of the real Kagome's personality I couldn't shake, it seemed. Too bad Keiko's determined stare froze the words in my mouth. Ugh. I hated it when she was right! What a spoilsport.

"Fine," I said, crossing my arms over my chest. "I won't touch him." I opened my eyes as wide as they could possibly go and jutted my lower lip. "But can I see him? Please, Eeyore-chan? Please?"

Despite giving her my very best puppy-face, Keiko remained unmoved. With deadpan sarcasm she said, "Did you forget I know how old you really are?"

"Aw, shit. I forgot."

"Clearly." She narrowed her eyes in the direction of the God Tree. "How about I go first, and you follow? Don't get near him, but seeing him…I can't imagine that would hurt, right?"

She sounded unsure of herself. She did that a lot, poor thing. So smart, but she needed validation like she needed air. Anxiety was no joke, but I knew how to help. I touched her arm and beamed my most infectious smile. This always worked with Keiko. Act like I wasn't worried and she'd calm down in a jiffy.

"I think it's fine!" I said, watching with satisfaction as the doubt in her eyes cleared. "Now it's your turn to lead the way." With a dramatic point toward the Tree I said, "As the Doctor would say, 'Geronimo'!"

Keiko laughed, flipping her hair out of her face as she pasted on a tough-as-nails, don't-fuck-with-me expression. Girl could be super scary-cool when she got focused. She walked with purpose out of the woods and onto the flat grass beyond, gesturing for me to follow only after she looked around and didn't see anybody threatening. I hopped out of the woods at her back and danced my way into her shadow—and then I froze. I fisted my hand in the back of her robe, peering with wide eyes around the side of her hip. Keiko looked over her shoulder and chuckled.

"Where'd your Tigger-like enthusiasm go, huh?" she muttered.

"Oh, it's still in here," I whispered back. "I just need a minute to process, that's all."

Inuyasha's red clothing gleamed like the skin of a polished apple against the tree's pale bark. When a zephyr curled its way into the clearing, his hair rippled in a cascade of silken silver pretty enough to weave into a dress. The God Tree's roots curled around his body like hands at a rock concert, holding him aloft and against the Tree in a vegetative cradle. Almost didn't notice the arrow spearing his chest; it didn't look large enough to pin him in place, but I knew the magic inside it gave it power I couldn't yet understand. With his eyes closed, body relaxed and held in place by those roots, I could almost forget Inuyasha would turn into a demon whose words bit as sharp as his pointed teeth. One yank on that arrow, and he'd be free.

But today wasn't the right day for that.

Naraku hadn't returned yet. Kikyo hadn't been resurrected. The Shikon Jewel—clearly active inside my body since I'd been able to use the Well—hadn't been pulled free by the teeth of a greedy centipede demon. And most worrisome of all, I hadn't yet met Kaede, who would tame the ferocious Inuyasha with the help of a magical necklace. Inuyasha would probably rip me to pieces the second he saw me if I woke him up today.

He'd never seen Kikyo as a little girl, after all.

He probably wouldn't see the likeness between us, if I woke him up so soon.

Keiko and I stared at him for what felt like an hour. Eventually she shifted so she could look at me, hand resting warm and gentle on my shoulder.

"You OK?" she asked.

By the look on her face, that was a loaded question. It always was with her. And truth be told, I deserved a loaded question just then. I'd just stared my destiny in the face, after all—and I'd just glimpsed the face that, per whim of the anime, I was supposed to love. Because he loved the woman I'd been reincarnated from…only, I wasn't that woman, was I? I was from another world entirely. I wasn't Kikyo reborn, like the real Kagome had been. I was someone else.

…right?

Questions cluttered my mind like trash on a beach: What if I could never love Inuyasha? Who—or what—was I? What would happen to this world, and the future Keiko lived in, if I didn't act just like Kagome was supposed to? What would happen if—?

Oh, shut up, brain! Who the hell asked you for your input?!

Keiko had wrestled with these thoughts and questions. She was farther along in her plot than me, though, and maybe I didn't have to think about it until I was as far along as her. I didn't like the idea of stressing myself out by waxing needlessly philosophical (not when I had Keiko around to do that for me).

With a deep breath of warm summer air, I banished my questions and all that they implied. I smiled as brightly as the blue sky overhead and tossed my thick black hair.

"I'm fine—just peachy," I said with a cheerful wink. "Now go touch on the dog-boy's ears for me, eh? I expect a detailed report of their softness and elasticity!"

Keiko snorted. "No freakin' way, Tigger. I'll let you have that honor when it's time."

"Aww, but Eeyore! I'm impatient!" I grabbed her around the waist and sagged, putting my whole weight on her. Her knees buckled; she grunted, quipping that my ass must be as dense as my head as I damn near dragged her to the ground. "Please? Pleeease? Just one little rub-a-dub? One little scritchy-scratch?"

"Not on your life!" She fought to drag me off of her before collapsing to the grass with a helpless giggle. "That's _your_ shtick, not mine!"

We bickered over whether or not giving Inuyasha an ear scratching was a good idea for a few minutes—long enough for me to forget my questions. For the time being, at least. Something told me they'd be back soon.

I'm not as anxious as Eeyore, but even my sunny disposition has its cloudy days.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keeping chapters short so I can release them quickly. Wrote this today on my lunch break!
> 
> Next chapter: plot.


	4. Sense of Adventure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The NQKs have a job to do, much to Keiko's continued chagrin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bon is a very important festival in Japanese culture, and it pays homage to one's ancestors.
> 
> Tōrō nagashi is a ritual in which you send paper lanterns afloat on water, to guide spirits to the afterlife.

A river flowed swift to the south of Kaede's village; to the north lay acres of rice paddies and vegetable gardens brimming with plants and food. The wooden huts of the village surrounded Kaede's temple in a tight knot, guarded by tall watchtowers and high walls. The temple lay at the heart of the village, taller and cleaner than the other structures, wooden roof painted a cheerful green. The village looked like something from a storybook—especially when we saw the colorful flags and glimmering wares being sold from myriad stalls in the village square. Kagome darted into the square and spun in a circle, shading her eyes from the sun as she peered at the temple and the stalls in turn. The square lay at the foot of stairs leading to the temple, offerings left at the feet of an ancient god.

"Wow!" she said, spinning like a dreidel atop her wooden sandals. "Wow, Keiko! This is so cool!"

Villagers—and there were many in this crowded space, haggling and trading and searching for goods in the bustling market—stared at her. I walked to her side, grabbed her arm, and led her gently into the shadow of the temple's steps.

"Careful," I muttered. I kept my head demurely bowed as a group of men walked past; one of them looked me up and down, but I refused to meet him eyes. "Best not draw attention."

She pouted. "Aw, phooey. You never let me have fun!"

"Well, your idea of 'fun' could get us killed, so I'm chill with being a killjoy." I looked over my shoulder at the market and frowned. Streamers of white cloth fluttering with long tags hung from poles above the square, tags inscribed with letters in dark ink between colorful lanterns. "Also. Does this seem normal to you?"

Kagome frowned.

I said, "I remember the village being less…well-trafficked?"

Indeed, I remembered the anime depicting this town as a quiet little hamlet populated by farmers, with little commerce or industry whatsoever. This market felt larger than expected. People walked from booth to booth and even up the temple steps, presumably to pray or make offerings.

"Yeah, you're right," Kagome said. She peered around my waist at the square. "Though the people are still what I expected, even if there's more to their economy than we thought."

She had a point. Most of the people in the festival wore the short, thin outfits of the common folk. Only the merchants wore nicer clothes. So maybe they'd travelled here, then, for some reason? Despite knowing that we should be careful to lie low, getting a firsthand look at the Feudal Era was just too cool an opportunity to pass up. My curious mind needed to know what the occasion was, and why a typically sleepy town played host to such a shiny gathering.

"I have an idea," I said. "Follow me."

Some booths sold beads, jewelry, and bolts of cloth. Others sold foods, libations, and medicines of dubious nature. The items were pretty, useful, unique, or interesting—which meant no one paid much attention to the two young women wandering through the throng. Made eavesdropping easy. Only took a few minutes to hear a young boy exclaim how excited he was for moon cakes, and another few moments after that to hear someone mention the evening's _Bon_ festival.

Kagome tugged on my sleeve when we heard those words. "But _Bon_ isn't for another two weeks in our time!" she whispered—in English. Oh, clever. That would certainly befuddle any prying ears.

"Calendars shift and adjust over time," I whispered back. "Think that might explain things?"

She screwed up her face in thought, then nodded. "Yeah, probably. Good thinking. But what—"

Kagome never got a chance to complete that thought. Someone near us shouted, and then another shout rang up. People pointed and stared in the same direction, up at the temple, and when I turned I saw why. A woman in red and white robes—dark hair streaked with grey, wearing a _tsuba_ for an eyepatch—had come to stand at the top of the temple steps with her hands raised, calling for quiet amongst the onlookers. I couldn't help but smile when I saw her.

We'd just gotten our first glimpse of Kaede. A younger Kaede than in the anime, judging by her hair and upright posture…but Kaede nonetheless.

Beside me, Kagome gasped. Her hand snaked into mine.

"Oh no," she said. "I've gotta get out of here!"

"What? Why?" No way would Kagome get spotted in this crowd.

"I don't want to risk her seeing me!" Kagome said.

"Ah. So _now_ you're exercising caution," I deadpanned.

"You bet your sweet ass I am," Kagome said. She squeezed my fingers before pulling her hand away and darting into the crowd—opposite Kaede's direction. "Stay put!"

I snatched after her but she moved too quickly. Desperately I snarled, "Kagome, wait—we can't get separated!" Cell phones barely existed in our modern timeline, let alone in this one!

"We won't if you stay put!" she called over her shoulder—and then she was gone, lost amid the press of the crowd. Slippery like an eel, that one. I just hoped she didn't get herself into too much trouble.

Resigned to waiting until she deemed it fit to return, I settled into my spot in the shadow of a booth selling earthenware jars and turned my eyes up toward Kaede. The crowd eventually quieted, and when it did, the _miko_ began to speak.

"Welcome, honored friends, to our _Bon_ celebration," she intoned with solemn—yet cheerful—reverence. "We begin the _Bon Odori_ at sundown."

I smiled on reflex. Getting to witness a _Bon Odori,_ or _Bon_ dance, unique to the Feudal Era was a chance of a lifetime. Too bad I wasn't more of a history buff…

Kaede gestured behind her at the temple. "Afterward we perform the sacred duty of _tōrō nagashi_. We are blessed with crops abundant, and this year we have secured paper so that each family may light a lantern in honor of their dead."

There followed a moment, of silence—and the crowd went wild, screaming and cheering at this news. A woman near me burst into tears, which struck me as odd…oh. Paper would be scarce and expensive in this era, wouldn't it? Perhaps the village had only lit communal lanterns in years previous. A family receiving its own lantern was a momentous occasion indeed.

"We meet on the northern bank of the river after the _Bon Odori_ has ended." Kaede bowed low and deep to the villagers when they cheered. "May the dead find their way to the afterworld in peace. Should you need assistance performing the prayer of rest while folding your lantern, I shall come to your aid. Please collect your lantern from the temple, and—"

"Kaede!"

Kaede stood up with a frown as a young man darted up behind her. The crowd murmured as he whispered something in Kaede's ear, but they fell silent when Kaede's eyes widened. She raised her fist into the air and turned to the villagers, face thunderous with sudden anger.

"The paper for our lanterns has been stolen!" she cried. "Men, arm yourselves. We shall find the culprit who did this and bring them to swift justice!"

It's amazing, how quickly the crowd dispersed. One moment they watched Kaede in stunned silence, and the next a furious shout rang out and they scattered. Men ran home to gather rakes, torches, sickles, and anything else they could improvise on short notice (this wasn't a warring village, after all). Many women went with them, too, leaving behind mostly children and the elderly. One of them, a white-haired Auntie if there ever was one, grabbed a stray child by the hand and hoisted him onto her him.

"This is terrible!" she warbled to another nearby Auntie. "To think we finally had the chance to honor our dead properly, and then this happened!"

"Who could have done this?" the other Auntie replied. They began gathering up the children, grouping them in a bundle in the middle of the square. "To think our dead might not be sent to the afterlife at all this _Obon_ …"

"Hey!"

Kagome's voice cut through the chattering Aunties' like a knife. She pelted toward me from across the square—with a gigantic green handkerchief tied under her chin, covering her dark hair and obscuring parts of her cheeks. She looked absolutely ridiculous, but now wasn't the time for jokes.

"Hey!" I said as she skidded to a stop in front of me. "Do _not_ going running off like that again! And where the heck did you get that scarf?"

"Do you like it? It's my disguise." She twirled in place, then grabbed my hand and peered up at me with urgent eyes. The fact that she'd avoided answering my question was not lost on me. "Sorry I ran—but come and see what I found."

I followed her to the edge of the square and through gaps in villagers' huts, moving north back and around the temple grounds. Although the temple was the largest building in the village, it only took us a minute or two to reach the back of it. A tall wall separated the temple from the forest, protecting the holy site from the wilds beyond. The flagstones of the temple foundation continued for a few meters past the wall, however, for which I felt grateful. These wooden sandals were starting to pinch.

Kagome skipped over to the wall and pointed at the top. "See that?"

I squinted against the sun above and spotted what she meant almost at once. A chip, maybe two feet wide, had been knocked off the top. Splinters littered the ground at Kagome's feet. Clearly the damage had come from inside the wall since debris had fallen on this side of it.

"And then, look there," she said. Her wooden shoes clacked against the stones as she walked across them, to the place where stone became dirt. "See?"

It was hard to miss, truth be told: drag marks, like a sled being pushed or pulled over the soft earth. Smaller squiggling marks marred the dirt on either side of the main tracks. I had no idea what caused those; they didn't look like footprints, that was for sure, and the fact I couldn't identify them didn't sit right inside my guy.

"I heard someone say the paper was on a sled," Kagome said (bingo, baby). She gestured at the woods with an excited, apprehensive smile. "Someone took the paper into the forest. It didn't show up on the flagstones, but I saw it when I was trying to find a place to hide."

I nodded and said: "We should go tell Kaede—"

At the exact same time Kagome said: "We should go get the paper back!"

For a second we just blinked at each other. Then I dropped my face into a hand.

"No," I said. "No. Nuh-uh. _Nope_."

Kagome pouted, hands tucked innocently behind her back. "But Kei-ko…"

"No. No. _Hell_ no! Absolutely not!" Kagome was curious, eager, sweet, wonderful—and far too enthusiastic for her own good. "This is _not_ our mystery to solve."

"C'mon, Keiko," she said. "Where's your sense of adventure?"

"I left it in the modern era."

"Oh, don't be like that!" she said. She took a few skipping steps toward the forest with a clatter of wooden sandal. "Let's at least go see where the tracks lead. We'll turn back if anything bad happens, I promise!"

Because she had a propensity for diving in without regard to the consequences, I paused and ran this scenario through a quick evaluation. Dark forest, thieves of uncertain nature, two teen girls with no powers to speak of? Recipe for disaster, for sure. My eyes darted to Kagome's hand. She was just beyond my reach, but if I jumped I could probably grab hold and—

Kagome followed the line of my gaze. Her eyes widened. She took a step backward, away from me. I took one toward her. That made her take another one back, until we basically two-stepped our way to the edge of the woods. She stayed out of my reach the entire time, even when I stopped walking and put my hands wearily on my hips.

"…if I say no," I deadpanned, "you're just going to run off again and expect me to follow, aren't you?"

It was barely a question, despite the interrogative phrasing. Kagome smirked and tossed her hair.

"It's worked so far!" she chirped.

I put my fingers to my temples with a sigh. Short of hog-tying Kagome to a tree, it was unlikely I could keep her from doing what she wanted—so my next best bet was to tag along and keep her out of trouble, much though I hated to admit it. We were basically a ragtag Hansel and Gretel at this point. Kagome's willpower was nothing short of unstoppable, and I was too invested in her wellbeing to leave well enough alone. Curse my protective sheepdog streak!

"Fine," I eventually relented. "We'll go look." I held up a finger, quelling her burgeoning grin with a glower of my own. "But we're _not_ engaging the thieves if we find them. Capiche?"

She popped a jaunty salute. "Roger that, captain."

"Captain," I repeated, tone dry. "I like that. Makes me feel like I might actually have some say here."

She giggled. "Then that shall be your nickname for today's festivities," she said—and with that, she leapt into the woods. "Now let's go find that paper!"

For the second time that day, I had little choice but to follow her—this time into the deep dark woods, where my paranoia insisted the Big Bad Wolf might dwell.

I had no way of knowing how right my paranoia would turn out to be.

 


	5. Voices in My Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The NQKs encounter an odd creature. NQKagome regrets.

Chalk it up to excitement, or maybe nerves, I guess—but it seemed like the wind in the trees whispered my name. I wanted to run into that forest and never look back…which was a terrible, _terrible_ idea. I didn't need to feel Keiko's eyes drilling holes in my back to know that I'd likely pissed her off to the nth degree, and that this was an immensely bad decision.

But if this was such a bad decision…why was I so intent on making it? Why did running into this forest feel like an act engineered by destiny?

Meh, probably not worth thinking about. I was just being dramatic. As we trekked through the forest, following the tracks of the paper's sled, I tried to put the odd longing in my chest out of my head and concentrate on not falling and tripping and getting impaled on a root. That's a fucking stupid way to die. If I was going to die (again) I wanted to go down like a badass.

We followed the grooves in the ground for about ten minutes before Keiko spoke.

"We should turn back," she said. Tension radiated from her in waves. "We've gone too far already, Tigger."

That was a good idea, of course. Going out here alone, two young girls all by ourselves, with no powers to speak of—turning back before shit hit the fan was an excellent idea. Yes ma'am. It totally, totally was.

A breeze ruffled my hair, bringing the scent of loamy earth and blooming flowers to my nose. I inhaled deeply of that cotton candy sweetness. I closed my eyes. The sun dappled my skin with warmth as it filtered through the branches overhead. A leaf tickled at the back of my neck; shivers skated up my spine like trailing fingers, pleasurable and soft.

Sweet longing rose inside me, nostalgia surfacing from a place I couldn't name. There was so much world to see—so much life to savor, experience, to relish. I'd felt it since the minute I stepped foot in this world, and I'd felt it intensely when I heard paper had been stolen from the village. Chalked it up to feeling protective of the village I'd soon be spending a lot of time in. I hated seeing those people— _my_ people—look upset at the theft. It broke my heart almost too thoroughly for comfort, considering it was just my first visit. Turning back was a good idea, but I'd be giving up so much if I listened to Keiko. I longed to keep feeling the sun on my skin, the wind in my hair, the taste of green things in my mouth, because it was so pure and good and lovely and it had been so long since I felt these things—

Wait.

'So long since I felt these things'?

Where the hell did that come from?

I shook my head and beamed at Keiko. "Sorry, sorry. You're right. We should go back to—"

The brush behind me rattled. Keiko's eyes flickered away from my face, over my shoulder. Then those eyes bugged out of her skull.

"What the _fuck_ is that?" she said.

I turned.

A dozen feet ahead of us, yellow scales shiny and bright against the dirt, sat…a thing. A thing with a squat little slug body and a big, arrow-shaped head, two black eyes staring at us above two slitted nostrils and a slash of a mouth. Sort of snake-ish, maybe, but stubby, and with a bit of a potbelly? Would've been kind of cute had two flaps of scaly skin not snapped up on either side of its head like a cobra's hood when it saw us, but even then—

The thing chose that moment to talk.

"Eep! Humans!" it said. It scooted backward over the dirt with a wriggle of its legless body. "Humans, humans!"

Keiko's jaw dropped. "It _talked_."

"They saw me!" the thing warbled. Its high-pitched voice reminded me of my fifth grade math teacher. "Good heavens, I've been found! Filthy humans, they're _here_!"

If I thought talking was the weirdest thing this creature could do, I was swiftly proven totally fucking wrong. It hunkered down and then hopped in place, opening its mouth and swinging its thick tail forward. It bit down on the tail and proceeded to roll—roll like a friggin', goddamn hula-hoop—away from us and into the brush.

We stood there for a second.

"What the _fuck_?" Keiko muttered.

"Yeah. For real." A pulsing thrill of adrenaline streaked up my back. I pointed dramatically into the brush. "After it, Eeyore!"

"Tigger, wait—!"

But there could be no waiting. My legs moved as if of their own accord. I dove into the brush while Keiko screamed at me to slow down, to wait, to talk about this before rushing headlong into danger.

I tried to listen.

I couldn't.

There was only running, and the thrill of the chase pulsing hot inside my blood—and that longing from before, honeyed and undeniable.

* * *

We cornered the whatchamacallit mostly by luck. After ten more minutes of running, yellow scales flashing amidst the dark foliage, the creature got itself stuck between a rock and…well, not a hard place? More like a _deep_ place. A deep ravine sat next to a huge boulder; the snake-thing rang into the V where they met, trapped between sheer rock and a ten-foot drop into a bramble patch below. Though the ravine was only five or six feet wide at the top, it was too far for the snake to jump over. Thing was short and stubby and probably not that acrobatic, aside from the whole rolling thing.

Anyway.

"I got you now," I declared, panting, when I ran up behind the snake. "Nowhere to run, snake-monster!"

It backed up against the boulder, letting go of its tail with a pop of suction. I whipped the scarf off my head and pounced. The creature fought back with slaps of its muscular body (damn, that thing was short but powerful), but I was bigger. I used the scarf like a makeshift bag and trapped the thing inside. Keiko ran up behind me a few seconds later, sandals clacking against the rocky ground.

"Holy—you _caught_ it?" she said.

I grinned, holding the bag aloft. Creature didn't weigh too much, thankfully. "Yup!"

She moved forward step by step, eyes on the bag. "It's a demon. Isn't it?"

The thing in the bag slapped outward with its tail, fabric tenting from the inside.

"Yes," came its wheedling voice, "and a demon of _great_ import, at that! You had best release me from this prison before I lose my temper!" More rustling and lashing and thrashing about; I held the bag as far away from me as it could go. "I shall smite thee with all the power of the great tsuchinoko clan!

"Tsuchinoko?" I said.

"Wait. Like the Japanese cryptid?" Keiko asked. Leave it to Keiko to have heard of this thing before.

"Cryp- _what_?" the creature cried. "I sense you have insulted me, and for that, I shall show you no quarter!"

"Whatever it is, it's not very big. Probably not very strong, either," I said.

Despite my assertions, Keiko looked worried—far more worried than she needed to be. I was with her, after all. I'd seen and bested stronger demons in my life—wait, no, that wasn't true.

What the hell was up with these intrusive thoughts?

I guess my grip on the scarf had gone a bit slack, because the creature flailed around some more and managed to poke its little yellow head out of a slit in the fabric. A forked tongue flickered from its mouth with a sound like blowing a raspberry.

"You…you're not afraid of me?" it asked. Round, dark eyes narrowed. "You don't cower in fear at the sight of a demon like most humans."

Keiko snorted, worried lines morphing into a glare even I found intimidating. "You don't scare me. I know demons far stronger than _you_."

Not a bluff. She was telling the truth. Even the tsuchinoko could tell. It shivered and dove back into the back with a frightened "Eep!"

I poked at the creature through the scarf; it squirmed away from my finger. I asked, "Hey. Did you take the paper from the village? Huh? Huh?"

"Um," came its muffled response.

"Answer her, ugly," Keiko said in a quiet, deadly voice. "Or we won't play nice."

The bag undulated as the creature fidgeted. "Yes, yes, we took the paper!" it admitted. "We took it, now please, let me out of here!"

Keiko's eyes narrowed. "We?" she asked.

The thing in the bag stilled.

Then, very quietly, it said: "…I have committed a tactical error."

"Not very strong _and_ not very smart," I said with a giggle. "You're batting a thousand."

"Batting a _what_?" It poked just its snout out of the bag and glared. "Never mind your pointless human drivel. Let me go at once, or my master shall dispose of you posthaste!"

"Your master?" I asked. "And who might that be?"

The tsuchinoko's chin lifted. "A demon of _great_ power. You won't have heard of him, but you soon will, for he is mighty and shall rule the western lands!"

"Don't the western lands already have a ruler?" Keiko asked, tone arid.

"Oh, yes," said the tsuchinoko. Its reptilian mouth lifted in a fuckin' creeptastic smile. "But demons such as we tire of the smell of _dog_."

Keiko's lips thinned as she stared at the tsuchinoko—but then she let out a startled 'oof' and lurched forward, sprawling face first on the ground. I leapt back and shrieked as a yellow thing, another tsuchinoko, looked up at me from between Keiko's shoulder blades. The shriek cut short when the bagged tsuchinoko writhed and bucked below my fist. Its tail connected with my wrist; I let go of the bag, and the creature bounced out of the scarf with a cackle.

"Attack, brothers!" it screeched. "Attack!"

A shadow fell over me. I looked up, moving like the air had been replaced by molasses. A dozen—no, _two_ _dozen_ yellow-bodied snake-things flew from the top of the boulder above my head. Most of them leapt onto Keiko, dog-piling her like exuberant puppies, but she shoved up to her hands and knees and batted them off with wild swings of her fists. A few of them tangled with her feet, though, and the next thing I knew she'd stumbled backward.

Backward, and into the ravine.

I caught a single glimpse of her terrified face before it disappeared over the edge. A moment later I heard a crash as she landed somewhere far below.

My chest froze like Han Solo in carbonite.

"Eeyore!" I shrieked. "Eeyore, _no_!"

I started forward, trying to get to her, but the tsuchinokos intertwined with my legs and feet and sent me sprawling just like they'd sent Keiko. I hit the dirt as a tidal wave of tsuchinokos surged forward, washing over me in a scaly mass as they ran for the fucking hills.

I couldn't blame them. From within the ravine Keiko had started shouting—and she sounded _pissed the fuck off._

"Why you—I'm going to murder all you little assholes!" she bellowed. "I'm going to turn you inside out and make you eat your own fucking hides, you disgusting little—!"

"Only if you can catch us first!" one of the tsuchinokos yodeled at her.

"Yes, yes, only if you catch us!" the rest agreed.

Dust filled my mouth and eyes; I coughed and sneezed, the weight of the tsuchinokos cresting over my back and neck and legs like a scaly hailstorm. As soon as the tide of cryptids thinned, I scrambled up crawled on hands and knees to the edge of the ravine. A few tsuchinokos watched, snickering from the edge of the woods as I looked over the precipice. Keiko stood at the bottom with her hair full of leaves and face streaked with mud. She looked fine, thankfully. No broken bones or concussions I could see. The ice inside me thawed somewhat at that, a slushie instead of the arctic tundra.

"Tigger, Tigger!" Keiko said. She grabbed at the wall of the ravine and tried to climb up it, but the slick dirt couldn't hold her weight. She slid back down to the bottom with an ooze of mud. "Help me out of here!"

"Are you OK?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'm fucking peachy." She did not, in fact, look fucking peachy. "Go back to the village and find a rope!"

Yes, of course. That was the most logical, smartest idea at this point. Good thinking, Eeyore. It was time to go back. We'd have more than enough adventure for one day.

Her brow furrowed. "Actually, no," she said. "Maybe don't? I don't want us getting separated, but—"

Oh. That was also perfectly logical. That was my Eeyore, thinking of everything. Gosh, I was lucky to have her, wasn't I? So lucky. I needed to get her out of this hole ASAP. I needed to reach down and grab for her hand, or find something to throw her.

I didn't move.

My hand did not reach for her.

"Are there vines up there?" she asked. "Any long roots you could toss me, maybe tie to something? You're too small to hoist me up yourself—"

Yeah, a root or a vine! Good thinking! I needed to look for one. I definitely, definitely needed to look for one and get her the hell out of that stupid ravine, for sure.

I needed to do that.

So why wasn't I moving?

Behind me, somebody sniggered. The tsuchinokos had gathered in a knot, laughing in a writhing pool of yellow scales.

"Stupid humans!" one of them chortled. "Stupid, stinky humans, falling into holes like that!"

From the depths of hole Keiko shrieked, "You _pushed_ _me_ , you assholes!"

"That's what you get!" said a snake-thing.

"Yes, that's what you get!" said another.

"For your crimes, we punished you!"

"The tsuchinokos shall never be defeated by the likes of mere humans!"

Contempt dripped from every syllable they spoke. Each word struck inside my chest like a gong. They rang outward, vibrating inside me until my limbs trembled in response—trembled with energy and emotion too hot to look at without squinting.

When one of them laughed, my teeth clenched, and I realized with a start what I was feeling: I felt _anger_. Or maybe rage. Fury, even, filling me to absolute bursting.

But why?

These things were so small, so silly, even if they _had_ knocked Kagome down a hole. They were taunting us, but pitifully, and I wanted to roll my eyes and shrug it off—but instead more anger bubbled up, hot and bright and terrifying.

What the hell was this? This wasn't _me_!

Below my perch, Keiko growled. She dug her hands into the ravine wall but the dirt crumbled under her weight. Brown eyes blazed with righteous indignation. She said, "Get me the hell out of here so I can fucking murder those little jerks, Tigger!"

I didn't move.

The tsuchinokos laughed.

The fire in me burned hotter.

"Sorry, Keiko," I said.

Wait. 'Keiko'? I never called her 'Keiko'!

"Sorry, Keiko, but you'll have to wait," my mouth said. "I can't let them get away with this."

She froze, fingers still lodged in the wall. "Wait…what?"

"You'll be fine." The words coming from my mouth were not my own. I tried to tell her with my eyes that something was wrong—that something was fundamentally, deeply _wrong_ —but I couldn't change my expression. I stared at her with wooden features as I said, "I'll be right back."

Keiko gasped. The pain, the hurt, the betrayal in her eyes cut me like a slashing blade. She reached for me, hand shaking. "Tigger, no, wait—"

I turned away.

I didn't _want_ to turn away. I knew I shouldn't. My feet moved of their own accord, toward the tsuchinokos, who squealed and bit their tails and rolled away into the brush. I screamed inside my head that this was wrong, that this wasn't right, that leaving Keiko was a terrible fucking idea and what the hell was wrong with me—

My feet didn't listen.

One foot lifted. Then the other moved. Soon I was running, unable to stop.

Step by step, my traitorous legs lead me back into the forest, toward a goal I did not want to seek.

* * *

It felt like being in a video game cutscene, to be honest—but like a cutscene from a first-person point of view game, where you can't choose your character's actions until some mysterious blip of programming gives you back the controls after the plot had progressed to a certain point. Fucking disorienting, lemme tell ya. I didn't enjoy it one bit. My legs kept moving after the tsuchinokos even as I chanted in my head, _this is stupid, this is stupid, this is stupid, this is stupid…_

Right about the time my body stopped vibrating with that out-of-nowhere rage, a branch whipped me in the face and made me stumble. I careened to a halt at that point, curse slipping past my lips—oh, hey! That curse was _mine_! Seemed the cutscene had come to an end at last. I stood up and grinned (ah, so my face finally belonged to me again, too) but there was no one around to see it.

The tsuchinokos had taken advantage of my stumble and disappeared…into the cave in front of me, I suspected.

Man, these things weren't very good at hiding at all, were they? They'd left those weird squiggling track marks in the dirt here, just like they had back in the village, and the tracks lead out of the trees and into the clearing right in front of me. There was a bit of a cliff, a bluff, on the other side of the clearing; looks like we'd traveled to the foot of some diminutive mountain. A pile of boulders at the cliff's base barely disguised the mouth of a small cave. Obviously that had to be their hiding place.

What the hell had those fuckers done to me, anyway?

Because that _had_ to be the explanation, right? For why I'd gone all automaton back there, I mean. Those little creeps had to have done something to me, and I needed to know exactly what—so it wouldn't happen again. So I wouldn't abandon Keiko again.

I marched forward, which was probably not very smart of me, and walked right up to the cave mouth. It was basically a crack in the cliff face; nothing fancy or whatever, only five or so feet across at its widest. I stood in the middle of it and squinted into the darkness within.

Yup. There they were. The tsuchinokos had gathered in the middle of a large cavern, whispering to each other like kids stuck in a library. In their middle sat a wooden crate on sled runners. Sweet. Looks like I'd found the stupid paper!

"Fee, figh, foe, fum," I sang. "I smell the blood of a bunch of little _shits_!"

A ripple passed through the gaggle of gasping demons. "Eep! The human found us!" one said, and in a wave of yellow scales they surged over and around the cart to hide in its shadow. Their eyes gleamed orange in the dark as they stared at me, limning the cart in umber light. "What do we do? What do we do?!"

"You can start by telling me what you did to me back there!" I said. "Tell me that, and hand over the paper while you're at it, or so help me, I'll—"

"You'll _what_ , little human girl?"

That voice…it didn't belong to the tsuchinokos.

It came from behind me, for one thing, and for another, it was too deep and velvety and _pretty_ to belong to a silly little thing like a tsuchinoko. It caressed its way up my spine and into my ears like silk made audible—but when I shivered at the sound, it wasn't because I enjoyed the voice.

Far fucking from it, people.

A cold shadow fell across my back. I turned like I was underwater, hackles rising, skin peppering with gooseflesh. I blinked up at the towering figure (silhouetted by the sun as it was), but could only barely make out a cascade of silvery hair and—

"Oh," I said in a small voice. "Oh. Oh _shit_."

The silver-haired, golden-eyed demon smiled at me.

It was the single most terrifying smile I had ever seen—and in that moment, an image flashed clear across my mind.

It was an image of Eeyore.

In it, she was saying "I told you so."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More important than this character reveal is the stuff going on in Kagome's head. "Voices in my head," indeed. I know y'all got a bit mad at her after last chapter, but please understand there's more going on than meets the eye.


	6. Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Not-Quite-Keiko meets a familiar face.

"So it's about demons?"

"Yes!"

"And time travel?"

"Yes!" Lia nodded, mouth stained with chocolate syrup and the biggest smile I'd ever seen her wear. "This girl Kagome time travels to the Feudal Era and that's where she meets them! You're gonna  _love it_!"

As Lia tucked back into her banana split, I stared at the intro playing on Lia's TV with a frown. Lia had told me I'd like this show, since it had demons like _Yu Yu Hakusho_ , but I wasn't so sure yet. Time travel wasn't typically my favorite device in fiction. Even as a middle schooler, I saw all the ways time travel could mess up your own future or change reality completely. Dad had made me read "The Sound of Thunder" too early for me to enjoy time travel shenanigans like those in  _Inuyasha_ , I guess.

Still. The look on Lia's face spoke of affection and excitement, and I'd hate to ruin her fun (so many people's eyes glazed over when I talked about YYH, and I wasn't about to do the same to her—not when she was my only anime-loving friend in the whole dang world). I settled in for the episode marathon with a sigh, reaching for the bag of Doritos. Suspension of disbelief, here I come...

"And who's the Yoko-Kurama-looking-guy in the red pajamas?" I asked as a boy with silver hair, pointed animal ears, and golden eyes appeared. Lia stuck out her tongue at the description, but her eagerness left no room for vexation.

"That's Inuyasha. He and Kagome are in love—well, sort of, if you don't count Kikyo, but we'll get there," Lia said—and then her eyes glazed over with the gooey, overstated affection of a teenage girl. "He's cute and stuff, but his older brother is way,  _way_  smexier."

Lia had quite a thing for Sesshomaru, I learned. In the coming months she'd show me her DVD collection, which covered the first few dozen episodes of the series, as well as the vast number of pictures she'd printed from the series, squirreled away in photo albums for her private perusal. These were the days of dial-up internet, after all. She printed the pictures when her parents weren't home to nag her about wasted toner. She even made me a binder of Hieis and Kuramas as a present—given at random, because Lia was a generous soul, awkward but infinitely loveable. While I never quite grew to love  _Inuyasha_  the way she did, by the time we graduated high school, I at least had working knowledge of the show's main characters and overall themes…the ones from the start of the series, anyway.

The series hadn't finished airing by the time Lia and I parted ways after the ninth grade.

"But you've  _gotta_  see the ending when it drops," she said to me on our last day of school together. She shoved a birthday gift bag into my arms, even though it was June and I wasn't turning fifteen until September. "Sesshy will remind you!"

Mystified, I shifted the tissue paper in the bag, but my eyes widened when I saw what lay inside. "I can't take this!" I said, lifting her well-loved Sesshomaru plushie from his nest of paper. I recognized his fraying hair, courtesy of many hugs and countless kisses. "Lia, he's your  _favorite_!"

But Lia only giggled. "That just means you gotta take really good care of him, OK?"

I kept my word, I'm happy to say, even long after we lost touch in our twenties.

That Sesshomaru plush sat among my _Yu Yu Hakusho_  dolls at home, just as cherished as my Kuwabara and Yusuke, even till the day I died and began my life as Yukimura Keiko.

* * *

"COME BACK HERE, TIGGER, YOU LITTLE GODDAMN BRAT!"

My voice echoed off the walls of the gorge like gunfire, but no one responded, and Kagome's cute face most certainly didn't appear over the top of the ravine's high wall. I stood at the bottom of that hole, screaming, until my voice grew hoarse and my eyes watered from craning my head back for so long. Eventually I heaved a heavy, annoyed sigh and let out a feral screech of frustration.

Kagome had _left me here_. She'd just left me! She'd up and ran after those stupid little snake-monsters, leaving me behind quite literally stuck in a hole. What the hell had happened to sticking together, to not getting into trouble, to keeping our noses clean and our heads down?

_Kagome_  had happened, I guessed. Girl was too exuberant, too excited to explore the world of  _Inuyasha_  for her own good. Reminded me a bit of that girl I'd known in middle school—Lia? Yeah. That was her name. Lia, who would talk your ear off for hours about her favorite anime series, and would more than likely run headlong into danger just like Kagome had if given the chance.

Ugh.

Just— _ugh_!

When it became obvious that Kagome wasn't coming back to help me climb out of this stupid hole, the only remaining option left to me was…well, to get myself out of the hole, without her help, so I could rub her face into it later. Taking a deep, bracing breath, I walked to the side of the ravine and gave it a thorough inspection. Though the dirt was too soft to support my weight, roots of trees wound through it in a dense tangle. I pulled on an exposed root, tugging at it hard, and grinned when it didn't come loose of its dirt mooring.

"I am going to get _extra fucking dirty_ just to make her feel bad," I resolved, and then I started climbing. Grabbing a root here, shoving my foot into the cup of a curling bit of wood there, I made my slow way up the wall—muttering all the while.

"Stupid Tigger," I grated between clenched teeth. "Stupid, stupid Tigger and her inability to focus for even a single goddamn second. Stupid teenage brain and stupid impulse control issues—ack!"

A root gave way under my foot, but I had enough arm strength (thank you, Hideki-sensei!) to keep from falling to my death. I peered down and realized I was halfway up the twelve foot wall—not too shabby for the girl who'd hated rock climbing in her past.

"See, Tigger?" I said to the absent girl. "I don't need  _you_. I don't need  _help_. I can manage all on my own, and—" the root in my hand shuddered; my body dropped, hand scrambling desperate for a new hold "— _oh sweet Jesus no no no no no!"_

I needn't have cursed, however.

Just as I began a free-fall back into the ravine, roots all giving way with a series of cracks and pops, a hand latched around my wrist.

A strong hand.

A  _large_  hand, one that most definitely did not belong to my diminutive friend Kagome...because this hand wrapped all the way around my arm and overlapped its own fingers on the other side.

Yeah. Not Kagome. But who?

I couldn't see my savior's face for the sun silhouetting him, hiding his features from view, but I barely had time to look, anyway. He lifted me up and swung me out of the ravine like I weighed nothing at all. My shoulder spasmed with the pain of supporting all my weight, but soon my feet hit solid ground and I stumbled forward, toward the person who'd caught me. Call me a damsel, but I expected them to catch me, ask me if I was hurt and help me stand.

Instead he stepped back, evading my touch, leaving me to fall to my knees on the hard earth.

For a minute I could only sit there, breathing labored, clutching my shoulder—but then my eyes caught on the slippers standing just before me. My eyes rose from them and over billowing white pants, up to a purple and gold sash and the hard plates of a samurai's black armor, up past silken sleeves embroidered with vivid designs, up to a spiked shoulder pauldron and an enormous, fluffy cloak-type-thing (if that's what it even was) on his shoulder. This furry cape seemed to billow behind this figure on an unfelt wind, tangling with strands of long, white hair—

Wait.

White hair?

"You smell like the demon that this one seeks."

His refined velvet voice cut the air like a knife, like the sword he carried on a sash around his armored waist. Slowly, I raised my eyes past his body and to his face.

Golden eyes, cold and cruel, bored into mine like needles, their color made all the richer for the magenta markings on his gorgeous cheeks, and the violet crescent moon staining the pale expanse of his white forehead.

I stared at him without speaking.

Because— _surely_  not?

_Surely_  I wasn't looking at who I thought I was looking at.

_Surely_  this wasn't—

When he spoke, and I heard the tenor of his silken voice again, all my doubts fled—fled the way I longed to do, because in all my adventures as Yukimura Keiko, this was surely the most dangerous figure I'd met yet.

"You," said the demon Sesshomaru, "will take this Sesshomaru to the one he seeks." He lifted his chin, every inch a king. "If you refuse, little human, prepare yourself to feel this one's infinite wrath."

Judging by the look on his face, I don't think he expected me to start laughing…but that's exactly what I did. Because I was pretty sure meeting him meant I was going to die,  _again_ —and sometimes in the face of unfathomable fear, the only thing to do is laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! Rogue chapter of this story to tide people over on my hiatus. Enjoy!
> 
> Chapter title is the name of the song going through NQK's head at the end of this chapter.
> 
> Realized this story has a fundamental flaw that I will rectify with the addition of a prologue. Stay tuned for that, in a week or two!
> 
> MANY THANK TO THOSE WHO REVIEWED PREVIOUSLY! You rock.


	7. Golden Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which it's NQKagome's turn to meet a familiar face. And then run away really, really fast.

Kurama—the silver-haired fox variety, with eyes like stolen coins and the sculpted face of an Abercrombie model—lounged atop a golden chair, cheek braced against one gigantic, lazy hand. The demon looked at least seven feet tall, though Kagome is short at age ten so maybe I was overestimating him. His white robes splayed open nearly to the navel, carved muscles of his chest and abdomen on tantalizing, intimidating display (hubba hubba, except not, because _scary_ ). The _tsuchinoko_ pack covered the ground at the fox's feet, some creeping up the sides and back of the chair to halo the demon with glimmering gold scales. More festooned the sled bearing the stolen paper. Kurama looked every inch a king surrounded by both his hoard and his horde, smile touching the corners of his mouth with the humor of a razor blade.

He probably would've been a lot more intimidating if we hadn't been in, y'know…a dank, dark cave in the middle of the fucking woods, where his throne looked totally and gaudily out of place (where the fuck had he even found that thing?), but hey. There's no accounting for taste, I guess. And let me just say that those fuzzy fox ears of his are, well, less than intimidating because they're so goddamn cute I could just _scream_.

…but why the heck was he even here? This was _Inuyasha_ , not _Yu Yu Hakusho_! I mean, yeah, the series were rife with crossover potential, and I _guess_ they had already crossed over given Keiko and Kagome were besties and whatnot—but _this_ was just fucking ridiculous. And of all the people to discover a _Yu Yu Hakusho_ character in this world, why me? This should be Keiko's gig, not mine!

Oblivious to the horrified internal fangirling in which I was most definitely embroiled, Kurama stared down at me and smiled. The _tsuchinokos_ stared up at him in tense silence, waiting for cues from the demon bandit they were now so very, very obviously working for.

"So you want this paper, do you?" Kurama said in that voice of velvet danger. His smile curled up at the edges, revealing pointed eyeteeth. Fox though he might be, that was the ivory smile of a wolf. "I'm afraid you can't have it, little girl."

"Uh," I said, eloquent as heck.

The _tsuchinokos_ didn't give me time to find my (very _very_ absent) wits. One of them slithered over the arm of the chair and peered up at the fox demon with wide, glimmering eyes.

"My lord!" it said, tail jutting toward me in a point. "This human wench tried to steal the paper from us! The paper you tasked us with procuring!" He rounded on me with a flicker of forked tongue, large eyes narrowed with a glare. "She must be punished for her insolence!"

Um. No? No, please? I wanted to say that, but before I could muster the words, Kurama's golden eyes flashed. His smile disappeared in the stolen time between moments, replaced by a look of cruel, hard malice. But he didn't move, or shift on his seat, or even _blink_ —and yet the air felt a lot colder all of a sudden, didn't it?

"Interesting," Kurama said, eyes on the _tsuchinoko_ at his side. "A _worm_ like you, telling me what to do?"

He spoke with delicate precision, not accusatory at all—just pleasant small talk, deceptive in its delivery but deadly nonetheless. The _tsuchinokos_ , silly as they were, certainly weren't stupid. The one on Kurama's chair shuddered and fell into a chubby, desperate bow.

"N-no, my lord!" the little thing warbled, chin flat on the armrest. "N-never! We would never do that! We meant no disrespect!"

"What do you mean, we?" one of the other _tsuchinokos_ piped up. A moment of silence followed before the others picked up the cry as well, a hundred small voices echoing: "What do you mean, _we_? _You_ said it, _you_ said it, not _us_!"

The _tsuchinoko_ in question—who had clearly just lost the hive-minded support of its clan—shrank in on itself, every last scale quivering with obvious fear. Kurama's eyes all but glowed in the dim cavern as he stared at the creature, clearly deciding if it was worth the effort of murdering outright.

Seemed not, in the end. Kurama's sneer darkened as he hissed, "Get out of my _sight_ , snake."

Even I wanted to run and hide just then, so I don't blame the _tsuchinoko_ for diving into his pack of brothers and wriggling out of sight. He'd gotten lucky, not getting turned into _tsuchinoko_ jelly on the spot. He knew it, I knew it, and I'd only been here for two minutes but I still knew Kurama was a dangerous son of a bitch.

A son of a bitch whose eyes had travelled back to me again.

_Goddammit and fuck, this was really, really bad._

"Tell me, girl," he said, smile drifting back across his handsome features. "Why have you come here all alone, weak as you so clearly are?"

I took a deep breath. Kurama's head tilted to one side just a little bit. Like he was curious, maybe? No way to tell and I was too freaked out to really think on it and he was staring at me so no time, no time, just talk! Squaring my feet under my hips, I thrust out my chest and smacked a hand to my sternum.

"I'm here to take back the paper the _tsuchinokos_ stole from the village," I said with all the earnest logic of a ten-year-old. "It's not theirs, the villagers worked hard for it, and I'll be having it back, please."

The _tsuchinokos_ gasped like a breeze blowing through a hundred tiny straws. Kurama's cheek lifted off his hand, golden eyes widening, smile dropping into a look of utter shock.

And then he began to laugh.

It started as a low little chuckle in his massive chest before building into an outright laugh, and then into a hearty guffaw. He threw back his head and laughed at the ceiling of the cave as if to send it crashing down around us, his voice a crescendo of pleasure and amusement so palpable I almost tasted it. When the laughter died and his face dropped down to me again, it bore a wider smile than before, dripping with affection (affection?!) I wasn't sure I liked very much—nor affection that I understood at all.

"A human with a sense of humor," he mused. At that Kurama leaned forward, eyes glittering and intent on me—and oh look, his ears twitched a bit, swiveling toward me with rapt attention. "Oh, I rather _like_ you."

"Uh," I said, because _excuse me mister sir, what the heck did you just say?!_

Kurama sat back in his throne. Powerful hands alit on the armrests, _tsuchinokos_ scattering, and his fingers—tipped in long, sharp nails—tapped a slow, rhythmic tattoo on the lacquered wood.

"Though I wonder," he said. "Are humans, perhaps, unaware that it is unwise to tangle with a fox?" That devious smile returned, toothy and full of nightmare fuel. "Tell me. Is your bravery born of courage, ignorance, or sheer stupidity?"

"Um. Well. I _hope_ it's courage?" I said, voice ticking up at the end in spite of myself. I thought of Keiko glowering at me from the bottom of the ravine and winced. "There's probably an argument to be made for me being stupid, so I guess you can think what you like. But that doesn't matter!" I thrust out a hand, calling on my past life as a kindergarten teacher as I slapped on my firmest do-what-I-say stare. "I'd like the villagers' paper back now, please!"

I'd expected him to laugh again, maybe, or pat me on the head since I was a charmingly brave little kid who clearly wasn't worth murdering (thanks, Kagome's baby-face!). Instead he did something different. Something I hadn't expected.

He revealed just then that he was a giant fucking _troll_ , that's what he fucking did.

Kurama blinked at me. He looked genuinely confused, hand alighting on the rippling muscles of his chest, gasping just the smallest gasp—affronted like I'd just revealed some scandalous secret, a petty crime that besmirched his honor but did no other damage. Oozing shock, prim as a housewife, he said, "You want me to give back the _villagers'_ paper?"

"Um. Yeah?" I said.

"You think that paper belonged to the _villagers_?" he continued, aghast.

"Well, yeah." What the shit was he playing at? "Because…because it _did_?"

He blinked those steely eyes at me, full lips still parted in precious, oh-my-goodness shock—and then the fake confusion dropped into an absolutely chilling smirk, followed by a dark chuckle.

"Oh, my child," Kurama mused. "You don't get it, do you?" One clawed hand gestured at the paper-bearing sled beside his throne. "This is _my_ paper. Your villagers have no claim on it."

Ah. Right. He was making fun of me. Typical adult picking on a little kid; typical demon picking on a weak human; typical _kitsune_ playing a trick on the unwary. I rolled my eyes so hard, it was a wonder they didn't tumble right out of my head.

"I mean, you say that," I said, "but legally, morally, and ethically, you're _definitely_ not in the right." I leveled an accusatory finger at him. "You stole that paper. That doesn't make it yours, mister sir."

Kurama's patronizing smile didn't falter. "Oh. How adorable. She preaches _morals_ to a _thief_. Stupidity wins the day, indeed." He leaned his cheek on his clawed hand again. "Oh, you are _too_ funny, little human girl. What did you say your name was?"

"I didn't say," I said.

He frowned. "And I suppose I didn't, either." But he apparently didn't find our lack of introductions particularly noteworthy, because he dropped the issue and sat back in his chair. "So tell me, girl. How do you plan on taking this paper back, exactly? You're far too small to drag the sled. You're far too weak to best me to get to it. And you're far too outnumbered to pass the _tsuchinokos_." More of that patronizing smirk, which made me want to punch him (even if he was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen). "What, exactly, is your plan?"

"Uh." Now that was a great question. Too bad I hadn't thought that far ahead. Toe kicking at the ground, I muttered, "To…to ask very, very nicely for you to help me, please-and-also-thank-you?"

That time his laughter came as wild as a wind off a typhoon, possessed with wicked thrill and dashing humor—but in his eye something sharp glittered, predatory and piercing. He eyed me up and down like meat at the market as the _tsuchinokos_ watched in anticipatory silence.

My skin crawled.

This was not the warm, cuddly Kurama Keiko had gotten lunch with the day we left for this strange world. This was not her friend, the boy I'd been hearing about over frozen yogurt and _aikido_ lessons.

Maybe Keiko had been right.

Maybe we shouldn't have come here, after all.

…OK. Not 'maybe.' We _definitely_ should've have come here.

"Are all humans this brazen?" Kurama-who-was-not-Keiko's-Kurama said. Another smile ghosted across his mouth. "Tell me the truth, girl. This is my first time in Human World, and I intend to carve out a territory of my own. Will all humans be as entertaining as you, or are you a singular entity amid their teeming ranks?"

I shrugged. "My mommy says I'm pretty special."

That pulled another laugh out of him. "Yes. I imagine she does." Silver hair bushed across his pale chest when his head listed to the right. "Hmm. What to do with you?"

I perked up and helpfully told him, "May I suggest letting me go and giving me the paper?"

"You can _try_." His clawed hand swept the humid air. "But these snakes might advise against it."

A hundred sets of beady eyes swung in my direction. A shivered coursed down my back as a low hiss filled the air, rising up and up and louder and louder like bees slow to express their mounting anger.

"They're here to pay fealty to me, you see," Kurama said, voice once more dripping with amusement, "and you intend to make off with their offering." He looked at his followers. "How does that make you feel, worms?"

The chorus rose to answer him, a hundred voices crying "Awful! Terrible! Kill the loathsome beastie!"

Kurama tutted. "Well, then. It seems they don't enjoy your terms." And then his smile vanished into a pointed glare. "And neither do I, in fact. I do not give away my tributes lightly."

"Well, you can think of it as a charitable donation, if it helps," I said. Tapping the bottom of my fist against my other palm, I said, "Tell you what. You bring back the paper, I'll tell the villagers you defeated all these little snakes, and then they'll _love_ you." I spread my hands and wagged my eyebrows at him. "Huh? Eh? _Eh_? How's that sound? Humans looking to thank you instead of trying to put your head on a pike?" My hands rested on my hips as I tossed my triumphant hair. "Nice plan, right?"

Kurama didn't move. His frown faded into nothing, into bland neutrality impossible to read. The tsuchinokos fell quiet at the sight, hunkering down together in a thicket of hushed scales.

Then, muscles gliding beneath skin with nigh mechanical precision, Kurama rose to his feet.

Turns out I hadn't imagined his height. The demon towered over me, taller than any human I'd met in Kagome's brief life—but his height isn't what dried my mouth and made my heart beat like a fucking jackhammer in my chest. That task fell to the sight of his molten eyes, flashing at me with all the reflective aggression of an animal stalking prey.

Of a predator stalking _me_ , more to the terrifyingly terrible point.

"Interesting. You think a demon such as myself needs to prostrate to mere _humans_ ," he said, whisper as loud and crashing as train derailing. "You think _I_ need to fear _humans_ , and secure their loyalties to ensure my safety."

I didn't really have the ability to talk just then, of-fucking-course. Kurama stepped toward me, but even that silent footfall sent me shrinking back in fright.

"And worse yet," he said, golden eyes ablaze, "you think me the brand of demon who would abandon his own kind and kowtow to human _filth_." One taloned hand rose, fingers hooked into wicked curves. "The _audacity_."

"I," I said. "I. Uh. Um. No? N-no?" Words poured forth in a shrieking babble. "Um, no. Nope! That's not what I think because now that you mention it, that sounds farfetched. You, ever abandon your demon friendos? _You_? Never!" I crossed my arms and turned up my nose, hoping I could make him laugh again. "Consider my offer rescinded. Never mind! We are _closed_ for business; have a nice day!"

My ploy worked, but only sorta, because his smile still had a lot of teeth packed into it. "You're lucky I find you amusing, girl," he said—and then that sharp fire in his eyes snapped. A cold smile, all the colder for the contrast of those heated eyes, crossed his mouth and closed shutters behind his eyes. "I will give you one last chance."

My breathing went wonky. "Uh. One last chance to _what_?"

His smile stretched into a grin, and my blood ran icy cold.

"To _survive_ , of course," he said.

Everything tunneled. My feet refused to move, even though inside I was screaming at them to _get the fucking hell outta Dodge right fucking now, hasta la vista, baby, let's make like a tree and leave_. Only I didn't do that because Kurama had put a hand to his chin and was looking me up and down, gauging the lengths of my legs and probably the cut of my slim muscles.

Sizing me up.

_Planning the kill._

I nearly pissed myself when his head tossed in a riot of gleaming silver, face as cold as his moonlit hair. "Now, little girl. I'll give you a head start. How very _magnanimous_ of me." A self-satisfied smile. "Fitting, since I will soon rule this land…no matter what that _dog_ has to say about it."

My mouth moved of its own accord. "Th-that dog?"

He waved, dismissive. "It matters not." And then he pointed out of the cave, back the way I'd come, smile growing with every passing second. "Make it to the river before me, and I will spare your amusing little life. And maybe I will tell you what I mean."

"You—what?" I said. This was all happening so fast, so out of the fucking blue, one second he was laughing and the next he wanted me dead and _oh_ _my god Keiko I was going to die here, wasn't I?_

I think Kurama sensed the fear, and enjoyed the taste of t, because his eyes gleamed brighter—and he laughed again. In his voice rang the bells of eager, bloodthirsty anticipation.

"Well, girl?" Kurama all but sang. "What are you waiting for?"

I didn't move.

Kurama smirked.

Kurama vanished.

I felt like screaming, but I couldn't, because a wind streaked by and then a warm presence appeared at my back. I couldn't move, not even when a single claw traced its way down the line of my trembling jaw, cold and sharp and stinging on my skin. A shadow fell across my face as Kurama, in all his demonic resplendence, loomed over Kagome's tiny frame.

" _Start running_ ," Kurama breathed against my ear.

And, well—you won't blame me for obeying, and lickety-fucking-split at that. Stumbling from fear, legs wooden, breathing labored, I bolted around Kurama's enormous height and headed for the light of the cave mouth, feet tangling with the steam of _tsuchinokos_ trying to trip my running feet. I barely heard them, though, or heeded their wheedling little insults and calls for Kurama to strike me down.

Kurama's laugh—cold and sharp like a knife made of bone—drowned then out, tracing my steps as I ran for the goddamn hills.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had fun writing the fox version of Kurama, whom I imagine is much more arrogant and ambitious at this stage of his life. He's still sort of young for a kitsune, not yet a legendary bandit, but his star is on the rise and that arrogance is fun to portray. Smarmy bastard! Plus, we don't see much of canon Yoko Kurama in the anime; his character is pretty malleable for my purposes.
> 
> I updated last week with a confusing update. This story has a brand new first chapter from Kagome's POV (now placed before the original chapter 1, which is now chapter 2). If you haven't read it, you probably should. It'll set the scene for later events. I didn't think I needed to show that chapter at first, but I decided belatedly that it was a good idea to write it out. Thanks! Many thanks to those who managed to FIND that new chapter, in that case, because reordering the chapters and adding one at the start was super weird, haha.


	8. The Lord

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Not-Quite-Keiko wears a mask.

 

Sesshomaru was, without a doubt, the prettiest person I had ever seen in either of my lives.

It wasn't just because of his exotic coloring or the cut of his clothes, nor the length of his shimmering hair or even the shape of his sculpted jaw. No, the appeal came from the quality of his carriage, from his high head and straight spine, those shoulders set so confidently back and the look of quiet determination on his face. Sure. He'd just threatened me with his wrath. But he didn't look murderous, exactly—more like unwavering and intense, those golden eyes burning like hot moons against his pale skin. He was the prettiest, most attractive, most magnetic thing I'd ever laid eyes on for the sheer  _poise_  he possessed.

Not that I was  _acting_  like I found him so utterly beguiling, of course.

I was still laughing in his face, held tight by the grip of hysterics, as he stared at me from above. This was not a man—no, a  _demon_  who took to being laughed at kindly, and this horrified giggling of mine needed to stop, fast. Only when his eyes narrowed and he took a step toward where I crouched did I find the willpower to bite my tongue and quiet down. His stilled, placated, but before he could ask me any more questions, the bushes over his shoulder rattled.

"M'lord, have you found—and who is  _that_?" said a high, reedy voice, and then a figure emerged from the brush.

He, much like Sesshomaru, was nothing I'd ever seen before, though not nearly so attractive. Short and clad in a mauve robe, wearing a pointed black cap on his bald head, he was a tiny little imp with skin like sickly seafoam. He looked a bit like Dobby with his tennis-ball shaped eyes the color of old cream, but that's where the resemblance stopped. From his beak-like snout came an indignant squawk; he scampered over to us, the staff he carried bobbing through the air several feet above his head. And speaking of heads, the staff had two of them—two human heads severed at the neck and hung at the staff's tip, one belonging to a pretty young girl and the other to a bearded old man. These were way more intimidating than the creature that carried them, though as the imp ran up to me and gave me the once-over, I tried not to pay them any mind.

This guy. This  _thing_. I remembered him, though not his name. Sesshomaru's loyal servant or something. But what was his name?

Bulbous eyes narrowed into thin slits, the imp looked me up and down, up and down, humming under his breath in concentration. Sesshomaru regarded him with cool, distant eyes before returning his gaze to me.

"She reeks of  _him_ , Jaken," Sesshomaru said.

Jaken's eyes popped open as they looked up at Sesshomaru. There was that comment again, that I reeked of someone, a male someone—but who? I didn't have time to wonder beyond that. Jaken leaned toward me and drew in a long breath through the slits of his nostrils. Um. Ew? I tried to skirt back a bit, but Sesshomaru's cold gaze froze my feet.

"Indeed she does, m'lord!" Jaken said, staring up at Sesshomaru in awe. "How keen your nose! How advanced your senses!" He didn't afford me any of the reverence he afforded his master when he muttered, "Is she his pet, then?"

" _Whose_  pet?" I demanded, but my question was not to be so easily answered.

Jaken drew himself up to his full height, so basically up to my hips, only since I was still on my knees we were at eye level. He raised one skinny green finger to my face. "Do not play with the great Sesshomaru, girl, denying what you clearly know! Tell us where he is at once! My lord seeks him out to chase him from the Inu no Taisho's lands!"

"Where is  _who_?" I said. The only person I could think of was Inuyasha, since we'd interacted with him earlier and he was the only dude I'd met in this world (aside from Sesshomaru and Jaken), but Inuyasha was still in his tree-coma. Head shaking, I said, "Dammit, I don't know who you're talking about!"

Sesshomaru's eyes narrowed, and in a move too fast to follow—a move of speed supernatural, of nature demonic—he blurred from sight and reappeared before me, bent at the waist, face mere inches from mine. I stopped breathing; he leaned down until we came nose to nose, and when he spoke, teeth flashed behind his lips.

"This Sesshomaru," he said, "does not believe you."

"Yeah, well, I hardly believe that regal affectation of yours, either, but you don't see me complaining."

I'm infinitely, infinitely lucky that I said that in English, reflexively using my native tongue in a moment of peeved panic. Sesshomaru blinked, and had he not been so unflappable, I'd say I surprised him. Jaken, meanwhile, I definitely managed to stun. He stammered a bit before darting over again.

"What language does she speak?" he asked, but at a sharp look from Sesshomaru, he shook his head. "I suppose it matters not." Addressing Sesshomaru, not looking even once at me, Jaken declared: "She is a pet, then. And a loyal one, to keep her mouth shut despite your commanding presence, m'lord."

Sesshomaru's eyes closed for a moment. Though he didn't smile, he features softened a touch, like he wasn't actually carved from white jade after all.

Too bad for me, his words were anything but soft.

"This Sesshomaru will enjoy killing her to spite her master, if nothing more," he said—and then his eyes fastened tightly onto me.

They gleamed like bullets of gold, as precious as they were deadly.

"What?" I said, stupidly, and then the dire moment sank home. I was on my feet in seconds. "N-no! You can't! I—"

Turns out Jaken wasn't such a little shrimp, after all, because before I could even think about running for my life, the staff with the severed heads spun in his tiny hands. My legs went out from under me again, sending me flat on my back, and when I tried to scramble up a hand closed tight around my wrist. I shrieked and yanked as claws pricked my delicate skin, but fighting Sesshomaru was like fighting a brick wall and he hauled me to my feet like I was nothing but a sack of dandelion fluff.

This is where I die, I thought, words loud beneath the sound of my won screaming. This is where I die again, for real, and—

But the killing blow never came.

Hand around my wrist, claws sending trickles of bright red blood down my pale skin, Sesshomaru…he paused. He frowned. And he stepped into my personal space and bent his face to the top of my head, nose brushing my hair, breath misting across my scalp.

"Um," I said.

"M'lord?" Jaken asked, uncertain.

Sesshomaru stepped away from me, brow furrowed below the purple moon adorning his forehead. His claws pulled free of my skin with a spark of pain (I hissed between my teeth at the feeling) and then traced upward to my hand. He took my hands in his and turned them over, not caring that he smeared blood across my palms and wrists. Slowly, tips of his claws delicate and inexplicably gentle, he traced my hand from wrist to fingertip, touching every digit, eyes intent on his work.

"Um?" I repeated.

"What are you doing, m'lord?" said Jaken.

Sesshomaru didn't look up. A lock of silver hair fell from his shoulder to brush my arm, silken and cool.

"Smooth," he murmured.

Jaken appeared at my side, neck craning upward. His huge eyes widened, if that's even possible. "Indeed, my lord! How keen your eyes! Her hands are as though they have never seen the pull of a loom or shuttle." Jaken drew back to look at me with another frown. "And her bearing. It's regal. Not like that of the common farming people."

I scowled at him. He turned up his nose.

"And she meets one's eyes so boldly," Jaken said. "What impertinence!"

Sesshomaru decided to try his hand at impertinence, then, and closed his fingers around my jaw. At my protest, his claws pricked me, so I stilled and allowed him to turn my face this way and that, eyes raking across my features as if they were a map he needed very much to read. Talk about undignified, but right then, my life mattered far more than my pride.

"This skin," Sesshomaru said, "has never seen the rays of the hard sun."

"My grandma was big on sunblock," I snarked—once more in English, thank my lucky stars. Still, Jaken gave a snooty huff.

"Smooth hands, bold bearing, porcelain complexion, with command of a second language," Jaken said. "Though her verbiage be coarse, and though her hair has been shorn so short, she must be a favored pet indeed, to be kept in such fine condition, and to be reeking of  _him_  the way she does." He reached out and grabbed a fistful of my robe, bringing it close to his little green face. "And her clothes, m'lord. The cloth is of fine weave. Exceptionally fine." Again his yellow eyes widened, tennis balls fresh from the can. "In fact, it's like nothing I have ever seen!"

"Yes," Sesshomaru agreed, hand still commanding my attention. His lips barely moved when he murmured, "Like nothing this Sesshomaru has ever seen."

I didn't like the cool, appraising look in his eye—that look butchers wore when sizing up a fine cut of roast. My body jerked of its own accord; to my surprise Sesshomaru let go, hand dropping from my face. I walked a few feet away and smoothed my robe. The demons watched, and though I kept my face composed, I wondered if they could sense the way my thoughts thundered behind my eyes like a falling avalanche. Soon I lifted my eyes to Sesshomaru's, took a deep breath, and tried my best to sound like an actor from a Kabuki play. Like Sesshomaru himself, even, with lofty pronouns and third-person verbiage. To mimic Sesshomaru was to affect an old-fashioned way of speaking, one that might make me seem just a touch less anachronistic.

I needed to wear a mask, it seemed. Though not of a school girl, but of a humble subject of this lofty lord. 

"I would appreciate it, my lord," I said, "if you stopped speaking about this girl as though she cannot hear you."

Though Sesshomaru didn't blink, Jaken squawked. "You dare address the lord directly?"

"Be quiet, Jaken," Sesshomaru said, and Jaken obeyed with a frightened squeak. Sesshomaru took one gliding step in my direction. "You will take this Sesshomaru to  _him_."

At that, I bowed, low and long and supplicating. "I understand you think I know this person you speak of. But I do not, and for that, this girl most humbly apologizes."

Alas, Sesshomaru's eyes merely narrowed with suspicion. I bowed again.

"I truly, truly do not know of whom you speak, my lord," I said. "This one is new to this land. I know the names of precious few who reside here. Please have mercy upon me." Yet another bow, even lower than before. "I am but a silly girl, after all."

"Due deference at last!" Jaken said. "She has manners, after all." He approached Sesshomaru's side with a bow of his own, although the lord didn't even look at him. "Perhaps she would make a fine pet for you, m'lord. Though I know how you detest humans." Jaken's face lit up with eager glee. "But to think what a slight it would be to  _him_  if you took her for your own!"

The color drained from my face, if my clammy skin and beating heart were any indication. Luckily Sesshomaru didn't cleave to Jaken's idea. He spared the imp a cursory glance, frowning, then favored me with another of his appraising looks. Soon his molten eyes cleared, resolve settling steely behind his irises.

"No," he said. His chin rose, haughty. "This Sesshomaru has a far better idea."

Jaken made a noise of protest, but he didn't say anything as Sesshomaru turned in place, lifted his nose into the air, and inhaled. His broad chest rose and fell beneath his spiked armor, slow and sedate as his eyes fell momentarily shut.

I considered turning tail and running for my life, just then—but even with his eyes shut, he looked like a spring coiled to strike. Was it even possible to outrun him, if I worked up the nerve to try?

Soon his eyes opened in a shower of gold. "The one this Sesshomaru seeks is close," he intoned. "His minions did little to disguise their trail."

Minions? I thought. Did he mean the tsuchinokos? Before I could ask, one clawed hand rose, gesturing the way Jaken had come earlier.

"Come, girl," he said. "Walk ahead."

I hesitated.

His claws caught a shaft of sunlight straying through the forest canopy, glimmering like a surgeon's steel.

I started walking.

Docile compliance was the name of the game, now. Play to his lordly statue, demure to his command and wait for a moment to strike. To survive, I had to play the long game, lull this powerful creature—whom I could neither outrun nor outmatch—into false security, until I spotted a chance to escape.

When that chance might come, I was at a chilling loss to say.

* * *

Sesshomaru and Jaken herded me through the woods in silence, even the chatty Jaken minding his tongue as we made our trek. True to my plan, I played coy while scoping out the woods for an escape route, but none ever came. No handy distractions to draw Sesshomaru's attention or ravines I could shove him into. I kept my eyes straight ahead, mindful of his footsteps at my back and occasion tap of Jaken's staff against my calf when they wanted me to change direction.

Once, when I allowed my head to turn too far to one side, skimming the trees for a way out of this mess, Sesshomaru placed his hand on my shoulder. Heavy fingers curled, pricking my skin through the kimono in clear warning.

Behave, he was telling me.

He didn't need to speak to give such clear, unassailable warning.

We didn't walk far before the scenery changed and Sesshomaru bade us halt. The edge of the woods stretched dark and long on either side of us; before us lay an open field rippling with golden grass the height of my waist. It sloped gently downhill, toward the distance where the river that ran near the village gleamed like a sleeping silver serpent. The little cup of field between the river and the woods felt like a small, golden Eden, grotto hidden and perfect for a summer picnic.

The river, though, caught my attention more than the pretty glen. If we were near the river, that meant the village was close, probably downstream by only a short distance, and—

Sesshomaru stepped past me, out of the shadows of the woods. Sunlight turned his hair nearly white, dazzling in its purity. He lifted his nose again, inhaling as a wind stripped by. "Upwind." His lips lifted in an infinitesimal smile. "That foolish creature."

Jaken concurred, "A fool to tangle with the likes of the dog clan!"

Sesshomaru's smile grew—but then it faded. Once more he lifted his face into the wind, hair falling around him like a curtain of starlight.

"But wait," he said, eyes narrowing. "There is another, coming ahead of him. Interesting." He turned and pointed back into the woods. "Jaken. Retreat. This Sesshomaru and you will observe from afar."

Jaken bowed and muttered a smattering of honorifics and praise before vanishing back into the forest. I started to follow, because I figured that's what was expected, but Sesshomaru pinned me with a golden glare.

"And you, girl," he said. This time he gestured at the pasture. "Walk twenty paces, but no farther, and stop." Another luminous glare. "And do not think you could ever hope to outrun this Sesshomaru."

The chill down my spine was not born of the cool breeze. "Never," I said. And I meant it.

Sesshomaru believed I meant it, too, because he turned and walked back into the trees without further threats (and he definitely didn't need more of them to keep me in line—like I said, my life mattered far more than my pride when the odds were stacked so high). Breathing deep to gird myself, I headed for the field and waded into the grass, fighting as it tangled with my feet and tried to trip me. Definitely no outrunning him when I had to battle this crap, that's for sure. I counted my footsteps in my head, intent on honoring his command of only walking twenty, but I wondered if the grass was tall enough to conceal me, if I could duck below its surface and scramble away on all fours away from—

The cry of "Eeyore!" sliced through the air like Sesshomaru's claws through flesh.

I froze where I stood at the sound of that name, turning as if underwater to the north, and to the curve of forest in that direction. Like excited lightning Kagome ran from the trees and into the grass, her face barely clearing the top of it, bobbing along like a fishing float on a wave, and at the sight of her humongous eyes and flying hair I broke into a run. Well, as much of a run as I could considering the terrain, but still. Sesshomaru's threats evaporated as Kagome swam through the field;  _fuck that guy_ , I had a friend to get to, and although it took a minute, soon Kagome and I collided in the middle of the field like a meteor hitting the earth. Her arms latched around my neck in moments, girl launching off the ground to wrap her arms around me.

"Eeyore, Eeyore, thank fucking Christ it's you, I'm so sorry for running off, I'm so fucking sorry," she babbled, but I just buried my face in her hair and held her to me. Sticks and leaves tangled in her locks, poking me in the face, but before I could tell her to take a bath and stop being such a gross little kid (and kid whom I'd missed and resented in equal measure this past hour,  _you fucking brat, you left me behind in that ravine_ , but  _oh my god thank my lucky stars you found me_ ) she shoved away. The girl danced from foot to foot like a dryad in need of taking an enormous leak, but I was doing the same thing, and as one we started talking.

"You'll never guess who I found!" we cried in tandem. Then we blinked at each other, mouths agape before sputtering our shared confusion.

"You first," Kagome said.

"No, you!" I said.

But that wasn't happening. Her elfin face paled as she looked over her shoulder, and then she latched onto my arm and tried to drag me forward, down the sloping ground to the river. She said, "There's no time! We have to run!"

I dug in my heels. "Run? But wait, Tigger! Why?"

"I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count." The girl rounded on me, eyes as wild as her bedraggled hair and stained kimono. "Silver hair and golden eyes ring a bell?"

I stared at her, taken aback. "Wait. But I already found Sesshomaru."

Kagome stilled. "Sesshomaru?"

"Yeah, Sesshomaru!" I said. "Who  _else_  would be here with silver hair and golden eyes and— _oh_."

I froze, because Kagome's lips had split into a smile, huge and manic, and in it I read that there was  _definitely_  someone else I should have thought about.

"Think about it," she said in a sing-song voice, but the command was moot, because I already was thinking about it, and  _oh my fucking lord_ —

"But if you don't mean Sesshomaru," I said, but I stopped when the horrible implication—the  _only_  implication—sank home. The  _him_  Sesshomaru had refereed to,  _Yu Yu Hakusho_  and  _Inuyasha_  mixing, and now this, it was all too much to not connect in a flurry of panicked thought. My hand clapped over my mouth. "Oh. Oh  _no_."

"Oh yes," Kagome said, and behind her—like a ghost or an angel and  _definitely_  a demon—Kurama in all his Youko glory stepped from between the not-so-distant trees.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit's about to pop off.
> 
> Next weekend, on the 9th, Lucky Child returns. Hopefully I'll have time to get back to DoD soon and not leave this cliffhanger too long.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading!


	9. Caught in the Middle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which titans clash and the NQKs (predictably) get caught in the middle.

 

As soon as Youko Kurama stepped out of the trees, Keiko put herself between us, shoving me behind her like a sheepdog guarding a lamb—and she showed her teeth like a dog, too, eyes catching on Kurama's silver hair and opening wide, like she intended to shoot him into dust with laser eye beams.

And I really, really wished she had laser eye beams just then, because Kurama had to be at least seven feet tall, not to mention  _jacked_ , and he was staring our way with a grin I can only describe as  _fucking terrifying_  on his lean face. The tsuchinokos boiled around his feet, too, like he'd arrived in a puddle of writhing gold. He was far off, all the way on the other side of the meadow, but even so the sight of him sent a bolt of fear down my aching back.

"Shit," Keiko said. "Shit.  _Holy shit_."

"That about sums it up," I observed.

"Both of them? Really?  _Both of them_?" She talked like she hadn't heard me, unable to look away from the silver and gold vision hovering just inside the encroaching tree line. "One was bad enough, but both—?"

"Both of them?" I repeated. "What do you— _oh my dear sweet Jesus, it's Sessho-fucking-maru_."

I thought her earlier mention of his name had been an assumption on her part, because  _who fucking else_  had silver hair and golden eyes in this world but Sesshomaru? My call for her to guess who I'd found hadn't exactly been fair—but it turned out Keiko  _hadn't_  been guessing, not suspecting a Yu Yu Hakusho character to show up, jumping to a conclusion based on the supposed fandom we occupied. Turns out she'd actually met the dog demon, which, um,  _oh my god_. When movement caught my eye off to the side and I turned just in time to see a tall-ass motherfucker wearing a huge, fuzzy  _thing_  and colorful Japanese robes stride into view, lustrous hair blowing like silk on the breeze, it was all I could do to stop and stare and not faint right on the spot.

Lucky for me, though, that Sesshomaru didn't notice my slack-jawed expression.

He was far too busy looking at  _Kurama_  to notice little ol' me.

Kurama spotted Sesshomaru as soon as the dog demon stepped into the meadow, of course. The fox looked momentarily surprised, but he angled his body toward the dog and lifted a clawed hand in greeting, shit-eating-grin in stark contrast to Sesshomaru's blank expression. I looked between the demons like they were playing ping-pong, from Kurama's smirk to Sesshomaru's swiftly narrowing eyes and back again—until Sesshomaru's eyes blazed, the whites of them turning blood crimson in the space between seconds.

It faded quickly enough, though. Cold, calculating Sesshomaru wasn't the type to lose control so early.

"You." Sesshomaru's voice carried like a linen flag on the wind, soft but strong and unpredictable. "I have been looking for you."

Kurama tossed his head, arms crossing over his broad chest. Sesshomaru's head dipped lower in response, eyes now sparking the color of bloodstained coins. Keiko pulled a hissing breath between her teeth, as if she meant to strangle the air even as she breathed it in.

Her hand, where it stuck out behind her to keep me back, shook. I stared at it, unable to look away, my heart kicking up its heels in response to her anxiety. Keiko and I were about to witness a clash of titans (or demons, I dunno)—and we were caught right smackdab in the goddamn middle.

"What do we do?" I said. On reflex I grabbed the back of Keiko's robe, edging closer to her because  _surely_  my wonderful, overthinking Keiko would have a plan, right? "What do we do? What do we—?"

"You have encroached upon the realm of this one's father, Inutaisho, lord of the western lands," Sesshomaru called out. "Leave immediately, and you shall be spared."

Kurama rolled his eyes. "Ah. The puppy. Errand-boy for the dog king. I should have known you'd find me eventually."

Sesshomaru bristled—and then he vanished, flickering from sight as though he'd never even been there in the first place. I started to tell Keiko, let her know that he'd disappeared, but before I could speak something slammed like a wrecking ball into my back. I stumbled and fell on my face in the meadow's tall grass, chest heaving as the air left it in a sibilant burst. I gasped into the dirt as I got my hands under me, rolling over on my back with a thrust of my arms.

Before me, Sesshomaru held Keiko close to his chest—but not in a sexy way you might find in dirty fic. Nah, the lucky child wasn't meant to get that lucky. He stood behind her with her back against his chest, one long arm looped around her body, hand cupping her throat just beneath the jaw. She hadn't even moved from where she'd been standing. He'd just shoved me away and warped behind her like some a ghost with bad fashion sense, that furry  _whatever_  floating behind him on the wind of his own movement, the pale white flowers dotting the meadow swaying in the same breeze. Keiko looked the color of old milk, eyes wide, lips gently parted, body rigid with fear.

When his nails dug into her cheeks, three drops of bright red blood trickled down her skin, tracks of pigment rusty against her pale flesh.

Keiko didn't even flinch. But her eyes jerked down to mine, brown depths full of warning.

_Don't move,_  she told me without saying a word.  _Don't you dare move, Tigger._

I'm not the type to take orders, but lemme tell ya, I was  _not_  going to disobey just then.

Sesshomaru, oblivious to our unspoken conversation (or maybe he just didn't give a shit) pulled Eeyore to him with a press of nails to skin. "This Sesshomaru has your pet," he said, words as cold and ubiquitous as a looming glacier. "Insult me again and she dies."

Pet? What the fuck did Sesshy mean by  _that_? But for some reason Keiko didn't even look surprised, just stared across the field at Kurama with eyes that looked…wait. Did she look  _hopeful_ , eyes all wide and swimming with tears? Why the fuck was she staring at him like a puppy through the bars of a cage, like he might be the person to adopt her at long last? Did she hope that, like, through the pull of time and space he might  _recognize_  her or something? I mean, they were buddies and whatnot, but—?

"My pet?" Kurama said. His lips curled. "I have never seen this human before in my life."

Keiko's hope shattered like a mirror under a brick. Her shoulders sagged, though they snapped back into alignment when her slouch earned her a face full of claws for her trouble. Sesshomaru, meanwhile, pulled his lips back over his teeth with a rumbling growl.

"Liar," he said. "She  _reeks_  of you."

One thin silver eyebrow rose. Kurama said, skepticism dripping, "What do you mean, she reeks of me?"

"The nose of a fox cannot compete with that of a dog, but even a lowly fox like you should be able to smell the obvious," Sesshomaru said—deadpan, nearly, and yet somehow his scorn radiated in every syllable.

But Kurama didn't rise to the bait of that insult. He smirked, arms crossing over his chest, one long finger pointing toward Sesshomaru. "Oh. So you want  _me_  to come to  _you_ , do you, to get a taste? Is that why you've placed yourself downwind? You want to lure me close enough to strike?" He tossed his head with a contemptuous laugh. "Oh, you silly dog! I think not. You excel at close-range combat, little puppy, and I am not so foolish as to give up the advantage of distance and fall for this small-minded trick."

"It is no trick," Sesshomaru said from between clenched teeth—er, fangs. "She  _smells like you_ , you ignorant twit!"

Sassmaster McFoxman retorted, "Except she  _can't_ , because I've never seen her before!"

Yeah, seriously—Keiko had never met Youko Kurama. We certainly hadn't planned on meeting him today. How could she possibly smell like—?

Oh.

Oh,  _right_.

She'd gotten lunch with Kurama just before I shoved her through the Bone Eater's Well, hadn't she?

Well. That explained a few things.

Too bad Sesshomaru didn't know what I knew, and that Kurama wasn't going to come close and check it out for himself. Even if this was the younger Kurama of yesteryear, more bombastic and less of a practiced killer than the Kurama of the future, he wasn't stupid enough to fall for what, to him, appeared like nothing more than a dirty trick.

"Liar!" This time Sesshomaru's calm mask cracked, red pouring into the whites of his eyes like spilled blood. Two sharp claws traced the line of Keiko's jaw, down the column of her heaving throat, Vanna White showing off the curves of a new sports car. "She is well-bred and attractive, as far as ugly humans go. Would you discard your property so readily?"

"I will say this one more time, and slowly, so you can understand: She is not my pet!" Kurama threw up his hands, smarmy douche rolling his eyes like a dramatic schoolboy, clearly fucking  _done_  with this entire line of conversation. "I care  _nothing_  for humans. I tire of this game of yours, so kill her or don't—it doesn't matter to me."

Keiko gasped. I did, too. Neither of the demons looked at us, though, eyes only for each other. I almost blurted at them to just make out already, but Sesshomaru growled low and deep in his throat. He had clearly been counting on a hostage situation to stack the deck against Kurama; I doubted he'd planned for his scheme to go awry. Expression uncertain, because I think the poor dude had truly been knocked for a loop, he said, "Do you not even wonder why she carries your scent?"

Kurama just rolled his eyes again, hands on his waist, one hip popped indignantly. "I won't fall for this," he said, as if talking to a small child. "Simply kill her and rid me of the sight of her wretched face. The girl is no concern of mine and  _I am not falling for this obvious ruse_."

Sesshomaru said, "But—"

Kurama said, "Kill her."

"But—!"

" _Just kill the damnable girl and be done with it_!"

Sesshomaru's eyes hardened, gold turning near to magma. His hand tightened, closing so hard over Keiko's jaw that she let out a sharp cry of pain, eyes roving, struggling against the arms now pinning her to Sesshomaru's broad chest. My stomach heaved and lurched, chest as tight as a stretched drum, heart leaping into my mouth like it wanted to escape the prison of my ribs.

"As you wish," Sesshomaru intoned.

"WAIT A SECOND!"

I don't remember getting to my feet. Hell, I barely even remember screaming at them to stop, and I'm just as surprised as you that they listened to me. Both Kurama and Sesshomaru looked my way in shock, two sets of golden eyes boring into me like bits of expensive, fancy drills. I don't think either of them had expected the little cowering human girl to speak, let alone address them directly.

Something told me both of these assholes were used to humans cowering in fear.

"Wait!" I repeated. Keiko stared at me in horror as I cast about for an excuse—any excuse—that could save her life. "Sh-she smells like you because, um— _because she knows your future_!"

It was a shot in the dark and I knew it. So did Keiko. Her eyes bugged, fists clenched into hard bundles by her legs.

"Sakura, be  _quiet_ ," she said, and I almost thought she was speaking to someone else—but oh yeah, 'Sakura' was the codename we'd agreed upon, the one she'd call me if ever I wound up face to face with a certain fox demon.

We hadn't thought I'd come face to face with Kurama's Youko form, of course, but now wasn't the time to split hairs over technicalities.

"No," I said, willing her to trust me, begging her with my eyes to just play along. "No—that's the truth. My friend here…her name is, um. June? And she is a seer of future events." I stretched my arms wide, trying to look authoritative even though Kagome's tiny body barely reached Kurama's waist. Tone as grandiose as I could muster, I declared: "June knows your future, and that is why she smells like you!"

No one said anything for a second. Keiko looked like she wanted to throw up. Slowly, movements indolent yet deliberate, Youko's head listed to one side.

"She smells of me because she knows my future?" he said—and then his brow furrowed. "That…that does not make sense."

"Agreed," Sesshomaru said (with supreme distaste, because he was agreeing with a fox, and Mister Stick-Up-His-Ass probably hated doing something so pedestrian). "The girl's assertions are both preposterous and illogical."

"And if  _she_  is a seer, then who are  _you_?" Kurama said, with a nod to Keiko and myself in turn.

In my panic, I opted for humor. I grasped the hem of my robe and dropped into a curtsy. "I am her humble, um…maid. Her maid. Yes! That."

Kurama remained unconvinced. "First you were a little do-good thief, seeking the village's paper. And now you are the handmaid to a seer?"

Keiko cleared her throat. For reasons unfathomable, Sesshomaru let her go, released the iron prison of his arms and allowed Keiko to step away from him. Somehow she kept her knees steady, hand free of shakes as she leveled one finger straight across the field—at Kurama, of course. She stared down the length of her arm with head held high, affecting the single most imperious expression I had ever seen on a human face.

No wonder she had managed to keep the truth of her origins secret for fourteen years.

My Eeyore was no doubt scared shitless, but damn, her acting ability  _rocked_.

"I foresaw the paper would bring you dire misfortune, Youko Kurama," she said—and at the sound of his name, his almond eyes widened. Keiko's voice sounded as commanding as her bearing looked, booking no room for any argument or protest from the confused fox demon, language skewing archaic like something from an old samurai movie. " _That_  is why I sent my handmaiden to alleviate you of the paper. To possess that paper is to court misfortune. Until you return it to its original owners, the sickle of fate looms sharp and heavy above your head."

I wanted to clap when she finished, nominate her for a goddamn Oscar or something, but I didn't want to break the silent spell that followed her dire proclamation. I bit the inside of my cheek and looked at Kurama sidelong, not daring to move for fear of ruining her work. Kurama stared at Keiko from across the field, speechless—but then he threw back his head and laughed. He laughed long and loud, uproarious, head thrown back as his shoulders shook. Sesshomaru, meanwhile, wore a confused frown, eyes tracing Keiko's body as if trying to read the truth in the line of her upright spine.

Kurama's head fell forward when he stopped his great guffaws, face cupped in one clawed hand. He giggled behind his fingers as his head raised again, one golden eye peeking between his slender digits.

"Come now, Sesshomaru," he said, voice replete with mirth. "What are you playing at? What game is this? Your lie about my scent did not work, so you playact me for a fool? What promises did you make to that poor wretch, for her to act with such vigor?" Kurama's lips pulled back over his teeth, but not into a smile. "This girl is no seer. Or if she is, she's a poor one indeed."

Sesshomaru's brow rose. "Oh?"

"Oh, yes," said Kurama. "It does not take the gift of foresight to know who will win the fight between us."

Sesshomaru bristled. "You overestimate your abilities, fox."

"Do I?" Kurama replied. With a voice like needles he said, "Or have you been kept wrapped in silk and pearls for so long, you've forgotten what a real demon looks like? Spoiled little  _brat_."

_That_  got Sesshomaru to break form, at last. He growled loudly enough to raise the hair on my arms, eyes blazing scarlet once more, every last one of his pointed teeth on full and fucking scary display. "This Sesshomaru will cut out your tongue and eat it," he snarled, voice like thunder in the meadow.

Kurama merely simpered, "Pretty words. But can you make them reality?"

Sesshomaru started to speak, but he stopped when Kurama lifted the hand from his face and snapped his fingers.

"I think not," the fox demon said—and the ground under my feet erupted.

Sesshomaru had likely thought the meadow an advantageous position in which to challenge Kurama, but Kurama was nothing if not resourceful. Underestimate the douchebag at your peril, basically. Even if they didn't engage each other in a forest, a variety of plants at Kurama's ingenious (and also goddamn  _horrifying_ ) disposal, the meadow was still quite the little playground for the wily fox. The ground below rumbled as if it capped the source of thunder itself, and then it lurched and buckled as something beneath it stirred. I tumbled end over end and sprawled onto the ground, and to be honest, for a second it felt like I'd fallen into one of those  _Honey, I Shrunk the Kids_  movies. The plants around me rocketed upwards, like either they were growing or like I'd suddenly gotten a whole lot smaller, tendrils of greenery shooting up against the backdrop of clear sky, leaving me quite literally in the dust. I scrambled to my feet, stumbling over the ground now cracked into slabs, and found that while the meadow grass hadn't changed, all those little flowers dotting it had undergone quite the transformation.

As in, they'd grown mouths.

Mouths with  _teeth_.

Mouths with teeth and big gigantic leaves that were actually more like tentacles splitting off the flowers' gigantic stems, writhing and striking at the air as the flower-mouths bit and snarled, ropy saliva dropping from their lolling tongues and onto the grass below. At least two dozen of them had sprung up all around Sesshomaru, Keiko, and me—but before I could do so much as yell at Keiko to watch the hell out, Sesshomaru shoved her away from him and blurred, running full-tilt away from Keiko and across the field toward Kurama. Keiko tripped over a crack in the earth and fell flat, vanishing under the tall meadow grass and out of sight.

Out of sight for me, I mean.

The twenty-foot-tall, man-eating plant hovering over her, however, had a pretty good picture of where she'd fallen.

"Eeyore!" Her name tore from my throat like a jagged sword through skin. "Eeyore,  _move_!"

But she didn't reappear above the grass, nor did the grass move around her, so she hadn't crawled away on all fours. My legs worked, propelling me toward her across the meadow, watching in numb horror as the flower looming above my friend reeled back, coiling atop its stem like a snake about to strike—

_Am I about to watch Keiko die?_

The thought surfaced out of the depths of my awareness, slow and lumbering. The world moved at half speed, the undulations of the bloodthirsty flower hypnotic in their ponderousness. I could hardly move, could hardly run, fear and dread so thick it made controlling my body nigh impossible—

And then I  _wasn't_  moving my body.

I mean, my body was moving—but  _I_  wasn't moving my body.

Like a peal of thunder a voice in my head said:  _NO_.

Just as it had before, the voice in my head swelled louder, louder, and louder still, answering my unspoken question— _Am I about to watch Keiko die?—_ with denial after denial, until I couldn't think, couldn't feel, everything drowned out by the depth and power of that terrible, familiar voice. Something inside me snapped, like I'd been jerked away from my own perception, yanked backward and out of myself by a ripcord of psychic energy.

It was like watching the world from the wrong end of a telescope. I felt myself run to Keiko's side, body no longer under my control. I saw her body amidst the grass, legs bound and immobile by the flower's grasping tentacles, face contorted in a wild scream—but even though worry and dread and panic suffused my awareness, I couldn't feel my heartbeat run out of control. I felt nothing, no connection my body even though it moved, skidding on its knees to Keiko's side, one hand raised with splayed fingers up toward the flower bearing down from above.

"Die, foul creature," said my mouth, without my permission. Heat built in my hand, comforting and inexplicable. "Perish under the scorch of holy light."

At that command, a blast of pure white light rocketed from my hand—and  _that_  power I somehow managed to feel.

It ripped through me like electric fire, hardly containable inside my skin, blasting out like steam from an overheated kettle. It tore through the monster-flower's flesh in seconds, tearing its mouth open Joker-style, its rotund cheeks splitting as its flowerbud head split in horizontal half. Chunks of plant flesh rained down, leaking green sap from the edges of the lumps lying quivering on the ground. The flower's stem thrashed and trembled, flailing its torn head with a spray of more sap, and then it went limp and collapsed with a thud upon the ground.

For a moment, silence reigned. Nearby, more plant-monsters screamed, screeching as Sesshomaru likely tore through their ranks—but before my body could do anything more, a voice cut through the quiet.

"Interesting," said Kurama. "The do-gooder handmaid possesses holy magic?"

My body, or whoever controlled it, didn't spare Keiko even a glance (though I managed to see her clawing at the vines from the corner of my eye, before my body turned from her completely). I stood up to find Kurama standing not ten feet away, near the spot where his slaughtered plant had burst from the broken ground.

Kurama lifted a hand, pointing it at me.

"You," he said, eyes gleaming. "Come here, now."

What a fool, to think he could command me (that thought ran through my mind, but in a voice that did not belong to me). My head inclined, a cruel laugh spilling from my lips. Somehow my voice had deepened, or was this how I always sounded, and I knew the truth now that I no longer held control?

"So:  _It_  deigns to speak to me?" I said. Another laugh, haughty and dismissive. "I think not. I have bested more frightful beasts than you, wretched  _kitsune_."

Kurama's lips pulled back, grinning, but somehow not smiling at all. He took one step toward me, toward  _us_ —

_Keiko_ , said a voice that did belong to me.

_Keiko. She was still here, beside me, hidden by the grass. Was she OK, or—?_

"Tigger!" A hand wrapped around my body's wrist, touch nigh indiscernible thanks to the distance between soul and shell. "Tigger, what are you—how did you—?"

My face turned to her—and I felt impatience in my chest, though the emotion was not mine. With mounting horror felt at the most visceral level of my soul, I watched my hand rise, Keiko's confused and terrified eyes visible through the splay of my spread fingers.

Fingers in which that heat began to build, threatening and bright.

_No._

_NO._

_NOT EEYORE NO NO NO NO—_

"Silence, girl," said that deep, cruel voice. "Stay out of my way, or I— _fuck no, you asshole, back the fuck off Eeyore_!"

I'm not sure how I did it, really. One second my hand gathered that hot, electric light, and the next I slammed back into myself, shrugging off the sway of the horrible voice like an unwanted and stifling blanket. It felt like I kicked off the bottom of the pool and broke the surface of water cold and dark, color and warmth rushing in to fill me, pushing out the voice and reclaiming my body with a thrill of electric triumph. All at once my heart pounded in my ears, every muscle singing with nerves alight with joyful fire.

"Fuck no!" I repeated in my own, clear voice, just for good measure and just for the sheer pleasure of it. " _Don't you fucking touch her!_ "

Behind me, Kurama (who had no goddamn clue what had just transpired, which made two of us) said in voice most irritated, "What is this? What game do you—?"

"It is unwise to take one's eyes off one's opponent."

Sesshomaru's voice cut through Kurama's the way my light had cut through the flower monster, swift and cold and undeniable. I wheeled just in time to see Kurama dance backward, Sesshomaru and his trailing mass of fluff pursuing him across the field with swipe after swipe of wicked claws. They danced with each other, almost, as graceful as they were deadly—and when Kurama plucked a blade of grass from the ground, it lengthened into the shape of a honed katana.

Sesshomaru only smirked, and grappled the blade with his claws. Kurama's eyes flashed, pressing back against his opponent with a snarl.

To be honest, watching them fight was sort of gorgeous? But a tug on my robe pulled my eyes from their tangled dance, down to Keiko as she rose unsteadily to her feet.

"Run," she growled. "Run,  _now_!"

"Yes ma'am," I said.

And with that, we ran for our fucking lives.

* * *

It didn't take us long to reach the river, pelting downhill from the meadow and to the bank below the crest at the meadow's edge—maybe half a mile, but certainly no more than that. Despite the short trek, by the time we skidded to a stop on the river's pebbled shore we both breathed like our lungs might heave straight out our panting mouths. Keiko's punk-rocker hair stood up like a chicken who'd run afoul of an electric socket, feathery and clumped with dirt and sweat. Grime stained her face in streaks like war paint, a bit of green slime from the slaughtered plant-monster splattered across her nape. She did a double-take when the glob slid off her skin and landed with a plop on her shoulder, wiping disgusted fistfuls of the muck from the back of her head with a repulsed, "Ugh!"

I all but stuffed my fist into my mouth to stifle a laugh. Keiko—hands coated in goop—glared at me and flicked some of it my way. It landed square on my nose, and then it was her turn to laugh. She bent over at the waist, hands on her knees, cackling at the ground between her feet.

I began to join in—but I saw movement behind her, high up on the distant meadow's ridge.

Youko Kurama stood at the top of the ridge, too far away for me to see his face, white clothes and flying hair unmistakable just the same.

Keiko followed my gaze when I didn't join her laughter, and as soon as she saw him, the mirth died. Once more she put herself between Kurama and myself. Her feet kicked up gravel as she darted in front of me, even though I—or the presence inside me I didn't yet understand—had tried to kill her only minutes before. She wore her teeth on full display as she glared at the distant demon, every inch as ferocious as the  _kitsune_  on the hill.

I turned around and walked away.

Keiko called after me, of course, when the heard the crunch of my feet on stone, but I soldiered on undeterred. The river's rushing waves crested over my bare feet (I'd lost my shoes long ago) in a cold rush, but I waded in until it covered my ankles, my shins, my knees, my thighs, all the way up to my waist, robe swirling around me like a pool of ivory.

Then I pivoted, motions labored amid the rushing water, back up toward the ridge where Kurama waited.

"I got here first, asshole!" I bellowed, and to my satisfaction my voice rang off the rocky shore like it had been projected through a speaker. "We had a deal! I beat you to the river, you let me go! So  _get lost_ , ya hear me?!"

Keiko gaped. I stood in the water for what felt like an hour, but surely for no more than a minute, wondering if Kurama would honor our deal—and then the figure on the ridge moved.

Kurama turned, and he vanished above the horizon line.

Keiko's jaw snapped shut with a click. "You—you two had a  _deal_?"

She sounded as surprised as I felt. "Um. Yes." I blinked, coming back to my stunned self with a start. "I'm actually really surprised that worked."

Keiko nodded ( _no shit, Kagome)_ , and walked to the edge of the water, hand outstretched. I waded back through the swirling foam and grabbed it, levering myself onto dry land with a splash.

Keiko hugged me, then. I hugged her back, burying my face in her filthy robe, not caring that plant-monster-goop got in my hair and stank like rotten nettles.

"Do you think he beat Sesshomaru?" Keiko asked, not letting go.

On cue, there came a loud shriek from the distant meadow—the plant monsters, still fighting.

"Not yet," I said, voice muffled as I spoke into her chest. "Kurama probably just keeps distracting him with those plants. We should go back to the village, get the hell out of here."

"Yeah." She pushed me back and stared down into my face, earnest and searching. "But, Kagome, before we go—what happened back there? That light, that voice—?"

"I—I have no idea," I said. When Keiko's brow knit, I told her, "It happened before. Back when I left you in the ravine, and—" My throat clenched at that memory, guilt rising hot and  _ugh_. "I'm so sorry I left you, Keiko, but  _I_  didn't want to. Really, that  _wasn't_  me!"

Keiko didn't react for a second.

Then, voice barely louder than a whisper, she said: "Do you think…Kikyo?"

My eyes dropped from her face to her feet.

Leave it to genre-savvy Eeyore to jump to that conclusion, huh?

Truth be told, the thought that the horrible voice might belong to Kikyo…it had crossed my mind, skirting at the corners of my what-ifs like a ghost. It had crossed my mind, but I didn't dare entertain the notion for long. I wasn't Kikyo—I was  _me_ , from another world, and I certainly hadn't lived a past life as a priestess. The relationship of Kikyo to this Kagome I didn't understand, didn't necessarily want to understand, but perhaps the time for denial had passed, and maybe—

Another shriek from up on the ridge, the dying knell of a felled monster. Perhaps Yoko Kurama hadn't honored our deal, after all. Perhaps he had merely been distracted by Sesshomaru, and the fight raged on and on.

"There's no time," said Keiko, urgent and low. "We have to go."

And she was right.

Getting answers was probably a good idea, even if it would probably suck—but now was not the time, and here was not the place to seek them.

The village lay to the east, nestled along the curve of the river a few miles upstream. We jogged there, no stamina left to run, too wary of attack to walk. Keiko allowed me silence, which of course I used to  _not_  think about the incident with the white light. Instead I just sang the Sailor Moon theme song in my head, timing the lyrics to the beat of my running feet, hoping to hell we'd put off discussing the whole possession situation for another day.

When I got to the part where Sailor Moon is "never running from a real fight," I picked a different song.

When the village appeared around the river bend, Keiko let loose a psyched "yes!" under her breath. Her pace picked up, longer legs carrying her fart ahead of me. I willed myself to run faster to keep up—but in the process, I nearly slammed into her when she screeched to a halt, bare feet skidding over the short grass just outside the village gates. I started to ask what was up, snark at Keiko for causing a wreck,  _toot-toot, get a move-on_ —but then I looked past her, and the words faded like ink in sunlight.

Before us stood the priestess Kaede, hands shoved in the pockets of her robes. A group of village men, maybe twenty in all, stood behind her, staring at us and whispering behind their hands.

At their side lay the wooden sled, burdened with crates full of their treasured paper.

Keiko gave a little gasp when she noticed it (and so did I). Kaede appraised us in silence. Keiko said nothing, and I followed her lead, shrinking into her shadow because  _oh my god, no, Kaede couldn't see me yet, it was too soon_! Eventually Kaede cleared her throat and looked at the men behind her.

"Are they the ones?" she said.

After a moment's hesitation, the men nodded. She grimaced. Her lone eye held—I'm not really sure what emotion that was, actually.

It's not like she was my sister or anything, reincarnation or no reincarnation.

"You two," Kaede said. "Come with me."

Call me nuts, or whatever, but I had to wonder who was more dangerous: the demons who could rip us to shreds, or this woman who might think I was her sister, when I most definitely wasn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those wondering how Kurama might not have recognized Keiko in the future, hopefully this chapter shed some light. He was much more focused on Kagome, only saw Keiko from across a field, and wrote her off as a pawn of Sesshomaru. Also he doesn't give a crap about humans, so why dwell on them? I truly don't think he'd have a reason to commit her face to memory, much less suspect she reappeared at his high school 500 years later.
> 
> Also, 500 years between meetings. That'll tarnish a memory!
> 
> So…yeah! Hope that helps!
> 
> Those of you who are only really reading this to get background for chapter 56/57 of Lucky Child should feel free to skip to the final chapter (once I get it posted, though at the time of this chapter's publication it's not available). We haven't seen the last of Youko or Sesshomaru, necessarily, but they're not the main focus of the story from here on out, so that's that.
> 
> I've outlined the rest of this story, and unless I wildly overwrite, we're looking at a total of 15 chapters.
> 
> Many thanks to everyone who chimed in after the previous chapter went up! You're all rockstars!


	10. A Moment's Respite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the NQKs have a moment to breathe.

 

Kaede—lone eye watchful and shrewd—didn't remove her clothes, even though that's what she'd bidden us to do when we entered the bathhouse. She looked mostly at me, eyes flickering only occasionally toward Kagome as we undressed. But that silence wasn't unusual. She'd said all of eight words to us since we got back to the village and found her waiting.

"Your friend," Kaede had asked halfway through our walk to the bathhouse. "Is she—?"

"Mute," I'd blurted. "And, um. Very shy."

She'd nodded, and said nothing more.

The bathhouse had been built over a natural hot spring, wooden walls and roof protecting natural stone-ringed pools set into the hard earth. We undressed in a sort of locker room, full of benches and baskets of discarded clothing, hiding our nakedness behind roughly woven cloths Kaede handed to us. She led us out of there and through a doorway, to the edge of a huge pool halfway shaded by an overhanging roof. A few bathing girls looked up when we passed through the flaps protecting the door, but they did not speak.

"I thought we could talk someplace privately," Kaede said. To the girls she added, with a flap of her wrinkled hands, "Shoo, ye flighty things. Shoo!"

The girls tittered, gathering themselves and exiting with scornful looks at Kagome and I. Kagome clung to my side, keeping me between herself and Kaede whenever possible, face either downcast or pressed into my shoulder blade. She clutched our discarded kimonos to her chest, and when Kaede reached for them, Kagome shrunk in on herself like a kicked dog.

Not that I blamed her. I knew the fear of being recognized by someone you'd rather avoid—and the fear of introducing modern textiles to an era in which they didn't belong, on top of that.

"Oh, um," I said, gesturing at our clothes. "We'll do the washing ourselves."

Kaede eyed the filthy, muck-stained garments in Kagome's arms. "If that be ye wish. But we will gladly wash them for you. Our village owes ye a debt of gratitude."

My cheeks burned. "I'm sure that's not true."

"Aye, but it is. I know the depth of your bravery. When the lantern paper disappeared, I dispatched scouts to search for it. One of the men came upon a young girl addressing the foul demon who had stolen the loot." She pointed at Kagome, brow and chin lifting. "Your friend there. I know she can speak."

Kagome's eyes bugged; she let out a frightened "Eep!" However, Kaede merely laughed, sound like a rough wind through rougher trees.

"Fear not, child," she said, smile turning kindly as she gazed at what, to her, looked like a frightened child. "We mean ye no harm."

Kagome, of course, just ducked her face again, probably fearing the terrible moment Kaede would recognize her too early in  _Inuyasha_  canon—but that moment hadn't come yet, and I was beginning to wonder if it ever would. Kikyo had been older than Kaede, after all. Kaede had never seen her older sister as a child. It was possible she wouldn't recognize Kagome until Kagome hit puberty and reached the age Kikyo had been when she died.

Still, though.

Keep ducking you head, girl, and hide that telltale face whenever you can.

"I apologize," I said, because alienating a kindly canon ally was a Bad Idea. Mind racing, I came up with the best excuse I could on short notice. "She isn't mute. But she  _is_  shy. That was no lie." I forced myself to look ashamed. "And I thought it would be easier, would offend you less, if you thought she couldn't speak."

Kaede, bless her, was the practical sort. "It matters not," she said, shaking her graying head. "We owe ye a debt, so all is forgiven."

"Thank you."

Although the hot spring's steam bore the faintest whiff of sulfur, my sore muscles cried out in pleasured agony when I dumped a bucket of water over my head, scouring the dirt and slime from Kurama's plant from my skin so as not to contaminate the spring. After we washed Kaede ushered us into the water. Kagome wasted no time and paddled toward the sunlit half of the pool, far away from Kaede at the pool's edge. She crouched in the water, vapor, distance, and the light glaring off the spring obscuring her features. Her black hair pooled around her like octopus ink spilled in the ocean's shallows. A tall red fence behind her obscured the pool from the village proper; I heard the rattle of carts and the hum of voices beyond the wall, excitement about the upcoming  _o-bon_  festival renewed after the return of the village paper.

Looks like we'd done a good deed for the village, after all.

I stayed close to the spring's edge near Kaede, sinking into the water until it rose to my chin. Kaede sat on an overturned bucket, lowering herself to it with a groan and a creak of arthritic muscle. I felt her eyes on me the way one feels a crawling spider, though of course she didn't mean me any ill. I'd never quite gotten over my American shame of nudity, even after growing up in Japan and countless visits to the local bathhouse with my parents.

"What are your names?"

I tried not to flinch, even though the question made me feel more naked than my lack of clothing. "She's Sakura. I'm…Ayame."

Shit. Of all the names to pick, right? Lucky for me Kaede had no reason to connect my name to that dour grim reaper of  _Yu Yu Hakusho_. She merely nodded at us, looking from Kagome to me in turn. "Sakura. Ayame. Welcome to our village." Her stare had a point to it. "Scarcely had you set foot in it did you fight on its behalf."

"Well…it's a nice village."

"Indeed."

We traded a long look, her measured stare carefully expressionless. Too carefully expressionless, actually—the way Kurama looked when he sized me up, before the day I told him the truth about myself. If I had to guess, Kaede was trying to sense why two strange girls, travelling alone, had risked their lives for the paper of a village to which they did not belong. She suspected an ulterior motive, probably. Good thing for me I had none.

Kagome, however?

I couldn't speak for Kagome.

It was another good thing she'd paddled off, lest she give herself away under the weight of Kaede's stare.

"So," I said when the silence stretched too thin. I nodded toward Kagome. "You sent scouts to search for the paper. One of them saw her talking to the fox demon. And then?"

"And then the scout came back to the village and rallied others," Kaede replied. "And when the demon left its cave to give chase to the young girl, they took the paper back in his absence." Her eye narrowed, lips pursing in her withered face. "I have reprimanded them for leaving a young girl to a horrible fate."

I stared, and when her mouth crooked, I realized she was joking. A laugh ripped out of my mouth, born as much from surprise as from humor.

"They told me ye distracted the creature after that," Kaede said when my laughter died—and it died because her eye darkened, staring at me the way a surgeon sizes up the heft and weight of a bone. "They say ye somehow drew another demon into the fox's line of sight, and they did battle."

"That was…sort of an accident." I sank deeper into the water, wrapping my arms around my ribs. My words were true, even if they didn't tell the whole truth. "The fox demon, the one who stole the paper—he had an enemy. It was luck that we drew them together, and that they favored fighting each other over killing us." My mouth quirked. "But I've always had decent luck."

Had Kaede known my real name, perhaps I could've gotten her to laugh at that pun. Instead she appraised me for a moment, but her head dipped and she muttered, "I see." At that her voice took on an air of command, leader of the village instead of the old woman she appeared to be. Shoulders back and spine erect, she told me, "Be it by will of luck or skill, you have honored our village with your bravery."

I couldn't exactly bow while sitting down in a spring, but still I nodded in thanks. She rose from her perch on the bucket with a grunt, hand braced on the wooden wall of the bathhouse for support.

"Wash and dress," she said. "There is a feast waiting, and then the lantern ceremony of the summer's  _o-bon_." Her imperious air lessened when she smiled. "Even if your ancestors do not lie at rest in our village, you must still pay your respects to those who gave you life."

"Of course," I said—and as she left the bath, I had to suppress a wry, anxious laugh.

Keiko's most direct ancestors hadn't even been born yet. I'd be paying fealty to as many unborn as I did the dead.

"Well," I said once Kaede passed through the flap covering the door. I turned and waded through the water to the wavy outline of Kagome's body in the steam, and in low, soft English I said, "We certainly lucked out there, Kagome. But what do you suppose—oh."

Kagome had fallen asleep.

She sat at the far end of the pool in a puddle of sun, leaning back against the spring's stony edge, eyes closed and breathing even. I sank low into the water and lay flat, fingers just brushing the bottom of the shallow pool. Careful not to splash as I glided through the waves, I hand-walked over to her and spun, settling silently against the wall at her side. Black hair clung to her skin in water-matted streaks before spreading atop the surface of the spring in a tangle of black threads. She murmured something, brow knitting more dark lines across her forehead; her head flopped to the side as she dreamed.

She looked completely innocent as she slept—like nothing more threatening than a little kid taking a nap in a warm spot, comforted and serene after a long and tiring day.

I knew better, though.

The bright, searing light that had come from her hands when the demon plants attacked told a different story—as did the deep voice that had not belonged to her, spilling from her mouth the way power spilled so easily from her skin.

What  _was_  that?

After we'd escaped the demons, Kagome had looked at me with fear in her eyes. I'd never seen her look so afraid, white ringing her irises completely, setting them adrift in a pale ocean of terror and uncertainty. "It happened before," she'd said when I asked her about the voice. "Back when I left you in the ravine, and—I'm so sorry I left you, Keiko, but  _I_  didn't want to. Really, that  _wasn't_  me!"

She'd looked too petrified to be lying, and that was sort of nice. If she hadn't been herself when she left me in the ravine, I could let go of the resentment still lingering in my chest. Something told me I needed to be there for her, not resentful, because she'd looked even more scared when I asked if she thought the person possessing her (because all signs pointed to just exactly that) might be the spirit of Kikyo. I mean, that made sense, right? Kikyo had holy magic, and that's what Kurama called Kagome's powers. Kikyo were connected on a fundamental level, so… _ipso facto_ , Kikyo had possessed Kagome.

Yeah. That had to be what happened…didn't it?

Looking at Kagome's sleeping face, I reached out and brushed a lock of sopping hair from her forehead. She frowned and mumbled, head lolling to the side.

The thing was…Kagome wasn't the priestess reincarnated. She  _couldn't be_  the priestess reincarnated. She was from another world entirely, where Kikyo was just a character in a storybook.

Could these two characters still be connected, when their souls in this world had not been cut from the same cloth?

Truthfully? Fuck if I knew. This wasn't my canon. I'd only read the first two volumes of the manga and seen a handful of anime episodes. I wasn't qualified to parse this mystery in any meaningful way.

Still, though.

I had to at least try—for Kagome's sake.

I brushed another tangle of hair off her shoulder, fingers absent as I mulled over the day we'd had. Kagome sighed in her sleep and listed toward me, leaning her head on my shoulder. I pillowed my chin on her hair with a sigh of my own, blinking up at the sunlight streaming over the bathhouse's overhanging roof.

We had a lot to deal with, she and I. Best get over my hurt feelings and be there for her, here in the world of Inuyasha.

Stars knew I'd need her to be there for me when we returned to the world of Yu Yu Hakusho, and to the fox demon waiting for me within it.

Kurama.

Oh my dear sweet fucking Jesus,  _Kurama_!

Just what the hell did today's disaster bode for my relationship with Kurama?

"…bot."

"Hmm?"

Kagome stirred, sleepy murmurs wafting warm breath against my dewy skin.

"Bot," she repeated.

Then, more forcefully: " _Abbot!_ "

"Abbot?" I said.

"Abbot," she said—and then she fell quiet, a soft snore echoing off the rocks of the surrounding hot spring. I stared down at her, mouth working, but no sound came out.

Abbot. She'd definitely said "Abbot."

But who the heck was  _that_?

Not that it mattered, probably. She was just sleeping—just  _dreaming_ , and dreams rarely made sense to anyone. I settled back against the edge of the spring with a sigh, combing at Kagome's tangled hair.

Best let her sleep a while, I decided.

We'd had a long day, and we both deserved a moment's respite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTES:
> 
> The chapter with Youko and Sesshomaru was really long, but we're going to return to shorter bits now—which is a good thing since it's easier to update when the chapters are short, and that means more story for you, and faster.
> 
> I updated a month ago today. Will try to update again in a shorter time frame—let's say March 6th? Giving myself a date will hopefully get the ball rolling here.
> 
> Thanks so much to all those who reviewed the previous chapter! Your comments mean the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Little quick intro. Have this whole thing planned. Will keep chapters short so I can update quickly. Tagged this as a true crossover fic since it's taking place in Inuyasha's Fuedal Era and not the YYH-world in the present.
> 
> This is gonna be fun.


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